With the chaos of the New Year and the sudden frosty weather January brings, it can be hard to find the motivation to get into the garden. Which is why finding effective shortcuts for tasks like seed sowing is always welcome.
Whether or not you’ve started your essential January gardening jobs, you’ll no doubt be aware that this time of year is not the most enjoyable time to be messing around with compost. Along with prepping yourself with essential gardening tools, finding helpful pieces of kit to aid you with jobs like seed sowing will not only save you time but help you keep your garden thriving, no matter the weather.
Sarah Raven seed sowing essential
Sharing the reel on the Sarah Raven Instagram (@sarahravensgarden), the gardening expert demonstrates how you can speed up sowing your January seeds.
“There are lots of ways of sowing into modules, but my favourite by far are these coir jiffys,” starts Sarah.
If you’re ready to start on your list of what to grow in January, jiffys are an efficient, no-mess way of sowing seeds. And the process isn’t just simple, it’s great fun and ideal if you’re getting your family into the garden this year.
Made from peat-free coir, which is the natural fibre from the husk of a coconut, these pellets are a great, environmentally friendly way to start your seeds, which is great if you’re trying out the rewilding trend.
“They’re just rather brilliant because they look like a two-pence coin, and then when you water them, they swell up to look like this, like a kind of chocolate brownie. And you sow your seeds into them, and these are some that I sowed a month ago that have already germinated,” explains Sarah.
Thanks to their compact size, these pellets are a great alternative to bulky bags of compost if you’re looking for small garden tips.
To swell them up to the right size, you can either add them to a bath or sink of water, or even just use your trusty watering can to water them in their trays. It won’t take long before you see them beginning to grow in size.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Then it’s time to choose your seeds. Now is a great time to grow sweet peas and many other great cutting garden flowers.
“Once they have fully swelled, the meanest of pinches goes in the top like that, ideally two or three seeds, and then you just poke them in. And that is literally it, just put them somewhere light but cool, frost-free,” instructs Sarah.
Using the pellets from her store, SarahRaven.com, the gardening expert explains the net that surrounds each pellet. She says, “This net is actually biodegradable, but we found in our trials, particularly with annuals, that it held the roots back a bit more than we wanted.”
“So with annuals, we tend to remove the net like that, but with perennials and like herb cuttings, we leave the net on, and it just disintegrates in a perfectly decent time to allow the roots to establish. But with really quickly growing roots, I think it’s just worth taking them off,” adds Sarah.
Sarah Raven
Coir Jiffy Pellet Tray Sets
Streamline your seed sowing with these peat-free jiffy pellet trays. Each tray has 45 large pellets that fit the 50mm diameter holes. All you need to do is soak the pellets and wait for them to expand in front of your eyes.
Jiffy Botanian
48 Peat Free Quick Soil Mix Pellets
If you’ve already got an impressive collection of seedling trays, these plastic-free pellets are the perfect choice. They don’t have the membrane around them, too, so there’s no worry about having to remove that for certain fast-rooting plants.
These practical yet stylish gloves, with adjustable wrist straps and touch-screen-compatible fingertips, are ideal for protecting your hands while sowing your seeds this season.
In the time Sarah has demonstrated sowing the seeds into the pre-soaked pellets, the others have already begun swelling up, ready to be used too.
So whether you’re looking to sort your garden out this new year, or perhaps learning to vegetable garden for beginners, this nifty way of sowing can save you time, space and money.
If you want to get the most out of your seeds this year, why not try out seed spirals? They’re a great way of sowing seeds in a more compact way, and you can reuse household waste to make them too.
