Grow Your Own Magazine

Is it just me,or do others find it really difficult to thin out seedlings?

I seem to have a surplus of onions, cabbages, cauli's, leeks and lettuce.

I'm getting a bit short of space and pots for potting on, so I am forced to throw the thinned out seedlings away. Even though it means the remaining ones will do better, I find it just so hard to waste all that potential

I didn't expect such good germination rates - note to self for next year - sow much thinner.

better to have to many than not enough,is there no one else you can give them to,or swap for anything else,and welcome to the forum

I never seem to get the thinning right so this year I have been sowing singly in fibre pots. That way they can stay where they are until planting out time. If not enough germinate, I sow more which helps with the follow-on sowing too.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

If it's a big/expensive seed, I sow one per module/cell.
Otherwise, it's 2 to a module, and thin out (compost or eat) the weaker one. You don't pot up thinnings - that's something else called pricking out.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

So is pricking out seedlings and putting them in their own pots not called potting on? and if not, what is potting on? is it when they get too big for their pot and get moved to a bigger one?

In which case, if you single sowed in a small pot, and then moved the seedling to a bigger pot, would that be both pricking out and potting on at the same time? or is that called something else entirely?

The trouble I have is not enough pots or space to put them, even if I had some (otherwise I would just buy some!)

What you have said is right. When you take a plant out of a smaller pot and put it into a larger pot. That is potting on.

When you seedlings out of a seed tray full of young plants and put them into individual pots for the first time. That is pricking out.

A comment, not a question that ends with a question mark ?
How do you do that ?
Is it a gift ?
Or have you practised over the years ?

mmmm - maybe a rhetorical question - you know, the type that doesn't need an answer