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seed sowing. My sowing list includes greenhouse tomatoes, chillies and sweet peppers, plus a few half-hardy bedding varieties – all plants that benefit from early sowing and a long growing season.My plan for the week involves something of a spring clean

Despite temperatures in my greenhouse dropping to zero at night but soaring by day, I've just got to get on with more seed sowing. Chillies and sweet peppers are top of my list. Last summer I had an outdoor electric socket installed for the garden

biodegradable pots that can be filled with compost for seed sowing. The secret to using is to keep the cardboard moist, otherwise it acts as a wick removing moisture from the compost within. Dry cardboard also prevents seedling roots penetrating. By encouraging

has been the traditional day for many keen show growers to sow their onion seeds, in a heated propagator in the greenhouse (not in the garden, of course). Do onions really have to be sown on Boxing Day, or could this just be an excuse to escape from

the surface of damp compost. Alternatively try land cress, a hardy salad variety similar in flavour to watercress. Or for edible flowers sow a few nasturtiums, a flower closely related to watercress and with a similar warming taste.Delve into the seed

made it impossible to sow seeds directly outside in the garden. The ground was just too wet, making it difficult to prepare the surface soil to sow into. Any small seeds I did endeavour to sow got washed away, wasting time, effort and money

of seeds onto the surrounding soil.Of course I could collect the seeds, and sow them in pots to raise young plants, but self-seeding cuts out the legwork. I just let them 'do their thing'. Plants have a marvellous ability to flourish without us, much

What a tremendous pleasure it is to grow sunflowers from seed. Thousands of children up and down the country sow sunflowers in spring, no doubt hoping to grow the tallest and enter the Guinness Book of Records.My sunflowers will never do

to grow, and get started. A greater range of young plants and seedlings are now available than ever before, providing a good alternative to anyone who thinks sowing seed is tricky. However, you certainly pay for the privilege of buying plants compared

There's something really rewarding about cupping your hand under an old foxglove flower, tapping it gently and collecting the seeds that cascade out of it. It must be something like collecting coins from a slot machine when you've hit the jackpot