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Perfect for gardening enthusiasts at any level, this podcast is your companion to cultivating success and beauty in your own backyard or flower patch. Hosted by Jane Westoby from Fuchsia Blooms Florist and The Hampshire Seed Company.
Each episode is a treasure trove of practical tips, expert advice, and insider flower farming guides designed to help you sow and grow with confidence and harvest with pride. Whether you’re dreaming of rows of neat vegetables or cutting flowers for bouquets all year round, we’ll walk you through every step.
Let’s grow together!
Jane Westoby (00:00)
Hey there flower friends and welcome back to the Blooming Garden podcast where we ditch the plastic wrapped imports and we grow flowers that actually smell like something and turn a few square meters of soil into beauty abundance and dare I say it, some profit. So I'm Jane Westoby, the founder of the Hampshire Seed Company and Fuchsia Blooms florist and I'm a wedding florist, turned seed seller and a grow your own enthusiast.
And today's podcast is another last minute recording and it's really on the back of some of the questions which were asked in one of my latest workshops and also a few little issues I have seen cropping up on Facebook too. So today I am diving into one of the great debates in the flower farming world.
should you sow your seeds in modules, make soil blocks or just go rogue and sow everything straight in the ground? Now, I know that when you're just starting out, it feels like everyone has a really strong opinion on this. some folks, are team just shove it in the ground and let nature take its course.
Others have an entire propagation station that looks something like what NASA would be proud of. I'm putting my hand up there. But the truth really is that there is no one size fits all. And it depends on your flowers, your space, your time, and your sanity levels. I wish there was a one-stop shop, a one size fits all, but there just isn't. So...
Today, I'm going to walk you through some of those methods and the pros and cons of each method, which one to use when with some real world examples in there and how to just avoid some of those common mistakes.
So you've done the fun bit, you've flipped through all of those catalogues, you've stocked up on all of your favourite seeds, maybe a few too many, no judgment, we've all been there, and your compost is ready, your trays are all stacked and your head is full of dreams and summer blooms. But then doubt creeps in. wait, do I need a heated propagator for these? You've seen people using them on Facebook and they swear by them.
Should I be sowing these indoors or can I just put them straight in the ground? That's what my gran used to do. What is a soil block and why does everyone on Instagram seem to use them? So you start Googling, then you start second guessing, and every video says something different. One grower swears by bottom watering and in another video you see someone watering with a hosepipe and before long you've spiralled down this rabbit hole.
of contradictory advice, outdated blogs, glossy reels that all make it look way, way too easy. So you panic or even more common, you just commit real hard to one method just because it looked really easy and somebody said it was the only way. But really that method doesn't really suit your setup, your climate, your time constraints.
And then instead of strong healthy seedlings, you end up with leggy stems, really patchy germination, or just trays of soil that just sit there and do absolutely nothing. Okay? So listen, it's not because you're bad at this, it's because we've made seed sowing feel way more complicated than what it needs to be,
Mother nature will help, she will grow for you and all she needs really is the right conditions. So today I'm just going to cut through some of that noise. So no fluff, no fear, no one size fits all, but just real world some of my tried and tested advice that works really well for me and hopefully it will work for you and your growing space as well. Okay, so let's start firstly with direct sowing.
It's the simplest method and it's exactly what it says on the tin. It's the no-frills approach. You put your seeds straight in the ground exactly where you want them. No trays, no potting shed, no fancy gadgets, just you, your seeds and the soil. And you know, it's not for everyone and it's best suited to...
really resilient types of seeds and hardy annuals, and especially those which don't like to be transplanted, like cornflowers, nigella, lupidium, poppies. And if you're thinking of doing this, then really all you need is a patch of soil that drains well. know, sowing seeds into boggy land isn't great, and you need some patience because germination can be slower and more
weather dependent. So all of the flowers which I've just recommended are all hardy annuals. So these seeds can be sown in autumn and again in springtime for succession. So why would you use this route? Well it's budget friendly because you don't need the seed trays and the compost or any indoor space. You just need a rake and a bit of a sprinkle of confidence. There's no transplant shot.
so your seedlings will grow exactly where they're going to live. their roots don't get jostled about, they're to the air temperature, they're to the amount of sunshine they get, so you know there's going to be no transplant shock there. It's also great for succession sowing, you can sow your your sowings every couple of weeks and you can have waves of flowers coming in. But the problem here is that
it's actually quite hard to control spacing. So you might get clumps or gaps and thin seedlings and then other patches you might get them really close together.
then the next one is weeds. So if you haven't prepped your soil first, the trick here really is to wait until the ground is warm enough for the weeds to start germinating. Hove them off,
then sow your seeds afterwards. So you've allowed those seedlings that were going to germinate, you've allowed them to germinate those weed seedlings, you've got rid of them, then you've sown your seeds. Don't sow before you do that first hoe of your weeds because you'll just get so much competition.
There's also no Plan B here. So your sowed bed could get hit by a surprise frost that maybe it just doesn't like. You could have a gang of slugs moving overnight and you've got no backup seedlings, you know, waiting in the wings in another tray. So I'll be honest, I very rarely direct sow. The only ones I direct sow are the ones that I mentioned earlier. So cornflowers, nigella, lepidium and poppies.
Jane Westoby (06:48)
Now let's come on to one of my go-to methods which is sowing into modules and this is where you start your seeds in small individual cells either indoors on a windowsill or in a greenhouse or under cover maybe in a cold frame. Think of it as giving each seed its own little room to stretch out and grow without having to fight for space or resources.
You can also sow more than one seed per cell though and you can either keep them as a small clump or to just divide them when you're planting. So it's much easier than pricking out from a large tray as all of the roots don't get all tangled up and if you've ever tried sowing direct and being let down by slugs, weeds or surprise frosts then this could be your method.
You can buy a range of cell trays depending on the seeds that you're sowing in terms of their size. So the smaller the seeds, the smaller the cell trays that you need to start with and you can always bump them up to a larger tray. Just one word of caution though, I will advise is to not use the recycled cardboard cell trays or pots for that matter because they are just not suitable for seed sowing. So the cardboard extracts the moisture from the compost
and it leaves it bone dry and seeds need dampness to germinate. So it's best to buy really good quality plastic and reuse it year after year. I've had some of my cell trays and pots for over 20 years now and they're still going really strong and I will continue to use them for a long, long time. So why I think this method is a winner? So the roots stay intact.
so the plants get less stressed and you're more likely to get strong steady growth when you go and plant them in the ground.
Jane Westoby (08:48)
So you'll get fewer pest losses than what you would maybe in the ground because slugs, as you know, love baby seedlings. So the modules let you raise your plants to a nice decent size before you send them out into the garden to fend for themselves. And then the spacing. So if you want really neat, productive rows and consistency, then... And then the next thing is the spacing. So if you want really nice, neat, productive...
filled rows, then modules make it really easy to space everything out evenly with no clumps and no gaps when you do plant out. And then it helps you to prevent over-sewing, as I've already mentioned, and you can really easily calculate how many cells you need to sow and grow to fill your space. So you don't end up having hundreds and hundreds of ceilings with nowhere to put them, you know.
If you take out, let's say a 12 or a 24 cell tray, you know what space that's going to take up in the ground. That's pretty easy to calculate. So you can then stop sowing when you filled your tray. And they've really, honestly, there aren't really that many downsides to this method, other than space. So they do take up space in a greenhouse. Let's say if you were maybe sowing
just in the large trays, yeah, okay, it wouldn't take up as much space. So that is probably the only downside, but literally that is it. So if you're balancing a full schedule, you have temperamental weather, or you want just a little bit more control over your growing, then this method is like pure gold with healthy transplants, fewer losses, less stress. So it's well worth taking the time. So my next one.
is soil blocking. Kind of similar but a move on to the cell trays and this one is even more eco-friendly. It's a slightly faffy option. So you may have seen those gadgets, they are the darlings of the flower farming world. Just like the module trays are the practical jeans and jumper option, soil blocks are the vintage cool
conscious, you know, eco-friendly version. So there you may have seen the little gadgets, kind of little squares with maybe a handle on the top that you push. So with this method, what you do is you compress a mix of compost and water into essentially little cube-shaped blocks that hold their shape without the need for any plastic trays or pots. So you just get really neat rows of little
earthy squares. There's some people called brownies actually which is really cute and they're ready for seed sowing. So I'm going to be really honest here, I do not have a special compost mix. So you may be familiar with this method and you may already be using it. You may have seen it and you may have seen all these really complicated seed mixes. You know, a third of this, a third of that, a third of something else. add in a dash of
You know, really? Why does it have to be so complicated? I just use compost because really, if I was sowing into a cell tray or into a tray, I would just be using compost. So why would I use anything different? It's literally compost straight out the bag. So I don't have the head space to make things any more complicated than what they need to be. And I have tried a few mixes.
And honestly, I can't tell the difference. The seedlings are in the blocks for such a small amount of time because they do very quickly outgrow their blocks. But it just doesn't seem to affect them in any way at all, just using straight compost out the bag. so for me, this method is best for, I would say,
everybody. You know there are small blockers on the market with just kind of 20 cubes and then there are larger more industrial huge sized ones so if you're a flower farmer try and seek out some of the big industrial sized ones and they're really great if you do want to ditch the plastics. They're way above the method we just discussed in the cell trays although because I already have my cell trays I am using them. I'm not getting rid of them I don't want to chuck them I am already using them.
And, you know, so there is a massive win if sustainability is one of your growing goals. OK. So they're really good for seeds, again, that that just don't like having their roots disturbed because the roots hit the edge of the block and then they're naturally air pruned, which means stronger, more compact seedlings and no root circling round and round. But I.
you know, it's not always straightforward. So you do need to make sure that your compost mix is just right. So if it's too dry, the blocks will crumble and they won't form into nice little squares. If it's too wet, they'll slump into like a mushy mess. Okay. So you do just need to get that right, but that's the only thing that you really do need to get right. Okay. And you need the gear, you know, I mean, they're not wildly expensive, but they are just an extra tool. They're an extra gadget.
and then you'll want some kind of flat trays or boards or something to actually put the blocks on. And it can be tricky to find something that's just the right space. I have found for my 20 block small blocker, so it's not an industrial blocker, it's just like a household one, you know, for gardening use. And I have found that the large strawberry punnets, the very large ones you can get,
I can get four of those blocks, huge, kind of four of those 20 blocks into one large punnet. So that's 80 tiny squares into one punnet. And then I can really easily calculate the ground they're going to take up. Okay, so the big watch out, I would say with these seed blockers or these soil blockers,
is that they dry out super easily. So if you use the smallest one, which is the one that I use, I'll admit I don't use the larger sizes. I just use the teeny weeny one for sowing my seeds into. I never bump them up really into the larger soil blocker. So by sowing your seeds, know, each seed needs to be sown with accuracy, usually using something like a toothpick.
So it's great for small seeds like snapdragons, maybe tannacetum, but also medium ones like something like china asters or stocks as well. I grow all my china asters and stocks in seed blocks. And it is really, really fiddly. It takes a really long time to actually sow them like this one by one by one. And sure, just throwing them in a seed tray would take, you know, less than a minute.
and it probably takes a good five minutes, let's say, to sow them individually one by one. But the amount of time I save in the long run is well worth the extra four minutes that I'm taking to sow the seeds like that. Because if I were to sow them into just into a tray randomly, it would maybe take me 20 minutes to prick out that tray and it avoids.
pricking out dread like what I have with my straw flowers right now. So this is really, as soon as that tray came up and I looked at it, I knew I'd done the wrong thing and I needed to sow some more, some more seeds. And ever since that tray germinated or those two trays of Helichrysum germinated, I've sown everything in seed blocks since then, because I'm looking at that.
tray and I have dread every time I look at it so really these seed blocks they're so easy to transplant you can literally just pick up the cube with your fingers you know pop it into your pot to prick it out and that's it there's no one tangling the roots so you might just need to experiment a little just to get that compost mix kind of moisture level just right but as long as you've done that then you've got the net.
and it's a really gentle way to start your seeds. Your plants will love you for it. It's a method that I want to use more, I think, in the future. And I think after this year's seed dread, I think I will be doing that. Okay, so golden rules. You need to match the method that you're going to use to your flowers and your lifestyle. There are...
So there are a couple of other methods. So you can sow straight into large pots. And if I am sowing something like sweet peas, which are quite large or peas, garden peas that you can eat, something like courgettes, cucumbers, maybe pumpkins, something that's a really large seed, I would just sew those straight into a small pot maybe. I'd say maybe three or four of them into a small pot. And then you could just separate those out as well.
The other thing to mention, which is everywhere at the moment, is seed snails. So the seed snails look so cute. It looks at a really, really great method. I haven't actually tried it yet. I might try it this weekend with some of the seeds that I'm sowing. But essentially you get something long and flat and it can be something recycled, like maybe some bubble wrap plastic or some kind of plastic packaging that you've had in a patch.
You could even use some cardboard, know, flat cardboard. And all you need is a long thin strip. You then lay your compost along that long strip. You roll it up into what looks like a snail. You can then sow your seeds into the top of that snail and the plastic or the card that's separating will then
keep all of those roots all in that tiny space but they'll have a really long root run if you leave your cardboard or your plastic quite tall they'll have a really long root run so they'll still have the space for their roots. That's a really fun method.
So some golden rules that I want you to remember. So you need to match the method you're using to your lifestyle and the size of seeds that you're sowing, the amount of space that you've got. You know, don't need to pick one camp and stick to it. You might need to use all these methods depending on the situation. Okay.
So you're here because you want to grow flowers that actually do something.
I'm here to tell you, you've got this with a bit of trial and error and maybe fewer Instagram perfect propagators, you can find the right method for you and get stronger plants and more blooms and hopefully fewer trays of disappointment. So let's wrap up with a few practical takeaways. So start with modules. If you're unsure, it gives you more
Control modules So start with modules if you're unsure these give you more control than anything else if you're ready to level up or you want to cut down on your plastic then move on to using soil blocks, but don't use them for the large seeds remember they're for small and medium-sized only if
you feel comfortable direct sowing and your beds are ready so the soil's warming up usually maybe late March onwards in the UK for springtime then you can direct sow but do be prepared for disappointment okay it doesn't always work out but most importantly do make sure you label everything because mystery seedlings are cute until you plant cosmos in the veg bed and be true in the bouquet patch
Okay, so I hope you found this week's helpful. So I have also uploaded a blog version of this to the website with lots and lots of pictures so that you can see what I'm talking about too. So I will link to this in the bio for you as well. And I'd love for you to leave a review or share this episode with a fellow grower.
And if you are ready to get serious about seed sowing, then check out the free seed starting guide, also linked in the show notes, which is packed.
No. So I would love it if you could leave a review or share this episode with a fellow gardener. And if you are ready to get serious about seed sowing, then I will pop a link to all of my growing guides into the show notes for you. And you can have a look through and see what else takes your fancy. There are lots and lots of blogs in there from how to grow poppies to how to make quick compost in six weeks.
So I'll pop the link to that in the show notes for you. So until next time, happy sowing. And just remember, you don't need a greenhouse empire to grow beautiful flowers. You just need a seed, a plan, a little bit of faith and the right pots. So see you next week.