Making Seed-Sowing Templates

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Why Use Templates When Sowing Seed?

This is a good question which I have often been asked. Here are a few reasons:

1. No transplanting or thinning
Many root vegetables like parsnips, carrots and radishes do not like to be transplanted. Also, especially in the case of carrots, thinning seedlings will attract pests (carrot fly) to infest the remaining crop. The idea behind the templates is that you sow one seed per station and leave them to grow to maturity where you sowed them. Rather than a random scattering of seeds, each plant should have enough space to grow without thinning or transplanting.

2. Optimising growing space
The templates also allow you to make the best use of your growing space. I have been very successful growing several varieties of radish using the 19-seed template and had good success with carrots using both the 19-seed and 30-seed templates on a 10" pot. The templates with more holes are mainly aimed at 12" buckets, commonly used in the US.

3. Saving seed
Provided your seed has a good germination rate, there is not much point to sowing 100 seeds in a pot, if you then need to thin them to leave only a handful to grow. Admittedly, parsnip seeds have a very poor germination rate after their first year, but carrot and radish seeds remain viable for several years and still germinate relatively well.

Making Seed-Sowing Templates

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Materials & Tools Styrofoam pizza base Pencil with eraser Adhesive tape Scissors	Step 1 Print out the relevant template. If necessary, align the pages and tape them together.	Step 2 Cut around the outer circle.
Step 3 Tape the paper template to the foam pizza base.	Step 4 With the point of the pencil, make a hole in the foam at the centre of each of the small circles.	Step 5 Cut the foam around the outer circle.
Step 6 If necessary, reposition the template to complete the outer circle.	Step 7 Cut the rest of the circle from the foam.	Step 8 This is the end of the pencil with the remains of the eraser removed from the metal ferrule making an ideal hole punch.
Step 9 Align the pencil over one of the marked positions, and twist it into the foam to make a larger hole.	Step 10 The metal ferrule removes a plug of foam, leaving a neat hole.	Step 11 Continue around the rest of the marked positions to complete the template.

Using Seed-Sowing Templates

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Materials & Tools Plant Pot & Template Compost, Sieve, Pencil, Seeds, Bottle Caps, Matchstick, Spray bottle, Water	Step 1 Using a fine riddle, sieve enough compost to fill your pot. I use this cheap plastic storage crate as a sieve. .	Step 2 Fill the pot with the sieved compost.
Step 3 Level off the top.	Step 4 Place the template on top of the compost, and press down gently.	Step 5 The compost should easily compress by a centimetre or so, leaving enough space to water the pot later.
Step 6 Starting at 12 o' clock on the outer ring, push the point of a pencil through each hole about 15mm (1/2") into the compost. Work around each ring into the centre.	Step 7 Remove the template and you should have a regular pattern of holes. Sow one seed into each hole.	Step 8 If you have dexterity issues, you can pick up a single seed on the end of a wet matchstick, and place it into the hole. Check the seed is not still stuck to the stick after sowing!
Step 9 Once sown, pinch the compost and close the hole to keep track of where you are up to.	Step 10 A watering can may wash the seeds and compost to the side of the pot, so I use a spray bottle to wet the surface of the compost.	Step 11 The seeds don't need much water to germinate, but you will need to keep the surface moist to have success.

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