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Cornucopia - Australia

Anyone used wallpaper paste for small seeds

13 years ago

Hi guys
I've read that you can use wallpaper paste to help plant small seeds. I've just planted some carrots and found i was ending up with about 10/mm. Does this work and can I use anything other than paste. I try to grow carrots every year but end up having pretty curly ones all wound together.

Is it true you can also use this technique for pre started parsnip seeds? I love them but usually end up with 2 parsnips per packet of seeds.

Any advice would be really helpful.
Thanks Esta

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Comments (2)

alisonoz_gw
13 years ago
Hi Esta,
You've been waiting a while for a reply. I read your post much earlier and had no experience to offer any advice, but your comments stuck in my mind (no pun intended).
I remembered it when trying to deal with tiny seeds of violas and pansies, trying to get them to stay put in punnets of seedraising mix with getting tweezers.
So I have tried an experiment of making my own strips to fit either flat trays or punnets, and just plain tissue paper, which I figure should disintegrate fairly quickly or at least not obstruct root growth.
Time will tell, it'll be a few weeks before they can be expected to germinate. I ditched clag-type glue after the first few and instead just whipped up some flour & water glue & a blunted toothpick to dob and a wetted one to place the seed.
Something you can do while sitting in front of the tv - what a fascinating life I lead LOL
anakei_36
13 years ago
I found this idea on the interweb some months ago, but I haven't tried it yet. I would prefer it to wall paper paste as I don't know what chemicals are the paste. This is called Fluid Seed Sowing. Sprout seeds on moistened paper towels Add one tablespoon cornflour to one cup of water and bring to a boil. Cool the starch mixture to room temperature before pouring it into a plastic bag. Ease germinated seeds into the gel and close the bag with a twist tie. If the weather is not right for planting, store the gel bag in fridge. To plant, snip the corner off the plastic bag and squeeze the gel and seedlings into the planting furrow as you would toothpaste from a tube
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