Propagation

A seed is a sleeping plant with a packed lunch. What is inside it, how germination unfolds step by step, the soil temperatures each crop needs, and why seeds fail.

Poppy seed runs to ten thousand a gram. How to bulk tiny seed with sand, sow it on the surface, keep it damp, and thin it, so the smallest seeds become the easiest crops.

The right size, the right day, the right depth. How to move seedlings from punnet to bed without transplant shock, and what to do in the first week.

Long pale stems and a lean toward the window mean not enough light. What causes leggy seedlings, how to rescue them, which crops can be planted deeper, and how to prevent it next time.

Most seed needs nothing. For the few that do, here is how to soak big seeds, scarify hard ones, chill cold-climate ones and smoke Australian natives, safely and at the right time.

Direct sowing skips the trays and the transplant shock, but it only works when the soil is warm enough and the seedlings are protected. Which crops to sow in place, which to raise first, and how to do it.

What a seedling needs Seedlings are the most fragile stage in the life of a plant, and a few days of the wrong conditions can undo weeks of work. N...

Most spring seeds that never come up were buried too deep. The twice-the-width rule, which seeds want light, and how to keep a shallow sowing alive.