Seed Sowing

My own experience mirrors yours, I must say! I do think that the first peat-free composts when the ban was imminent were terrible (the writing had been on the wall for years but of course no-one had read it!), but things are maybe settling down now…discussion amongst the team suggests that Westland composts are not bad and hopefully others will follow. Personally I no longer use multi-purpose for sowing seeds (although the very expensive Sylva-grow is OK for larger seeds) but the only dedicated seed compost I have had much luck with is Westland’s John Innes, which is not always easy to find. Other seed composts I’ve tried have been no better than multi-purpose. Another team member uses Westland multi-purpose successfully.

I have also found recently that seeds are often quite old, which in some varieties can severely limit their ability to germinate. Unfortunately it’s quite hard to get at the actual age of the seed in the packets – some companies give a sow-by date, but others only give the packing date, which is meaningless: the seed can be much older. I have recently bought seed by mail which has been past its sow-by date or from the same batch number as seed 2 or 3 years older which I still had a bit of; complaints generally are ignored or result at best in the offer of an exchange, usually for the same seed again…

So if you buy your seed off the shelf, check the dates; don’t buy reduced seed as it’s likely to be old; and keep notes of whose seeds germinate and whose don’t. I find Thompson & Morgan to be especially bad and King’s and D T Brown to be fairly reliable, but I think the latter are usually only available by mail (though Fothergill’s is now DTB too). And we should all complain long and loud if things are out of date!!

With regard to heat, if you have a warm greenhouse you may be getting big temperature swings in the kind of weather we’ve been having recently, i.e. very warm during the day and pretty chilly at night, so maybe some fleece at night would help. I tend to get better germination of fussy things in my not-very-sunny greenhouse, using a propagator for some, than in the tunnel, which gets a lot more sun. If this is a problem, it should lessen as the nights get shorter (and, hopefully, warmer).

I hope this is helpful, and best of luck for next year!