Seed Tape

This morning I made seed tape for the carrot and onion seeds. I've never made them before but always look at them in the seed catalogs and think that it might make planting the smaller seeds a little easier, with less thinning later.

I used a 'recipe' from an older gardening book. Basically you dissolve 1 T of cornstarch in 1 cup cold water and stir and cook over medium heat until it boils and turns translucent and gel-like. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.

While it's cooling, take a length of paper towels....4-5 still connected and cut into 1 in strips. When the gel is cool place it into a plastic bag and do one of 2 things:

1. If the seeds are bigger, cut a tip of the bag and place dots along the towels at the desired spacing. Place one seed per dot and let dry.

2. If they are small seed, place about 1/4 tsp of seeds per 1 tsp of gel into the bag and mix. Squeeze out one seed at at time at the desired spacing.

I tried mixing with the first batch of carrot seeds and it was hard to get just one out, so I tried the dots with the onions and remaing carrots and found it much easier. The book said one they were dry you could roll them up and save them until you are ready to use them, but we used our today.

The peas are in. The carrots are in. The onion (seeds) are in. The lettuce is in. And a few radishes too. Now it can rain again.