Hi Everyone,

Do you have a "Herbs from Seed" tip to share? My tip for early blooming lavender: Put the seeds in a damp paper towel and into plastic baggie and leave it in the freezer over night. Next day, remove, let thaw and sow seeds as directed. I had all germinate in 3 to 5 days, started them under lights indoors Mid-March, planted them out in the garden Mid May and enjoyed blooms from early June until Fall frost. I have wintersowed them in the past, but they do seem to need about 8 to 10 weeks to bloom from germination. Depending on our weather, some wintersown stuff doesn't germinate until end of April, so starting indoors does make a difference.

Would love to hear your Herb Tip

Wow, great tip, Joanne - thanks!



I'm afraid I don't have any really good tips for herbs/ seed starting. I'll sleep on it tonight and see if I come up with anything.

This is a tip I'm going to try as I'm told it has good success.

After scattering basil seeds over flats, use sand to cover the tiny seeds. This way you can know they were not covered too deep. Just sprinkle the sand lightly over the flat and mist it in.

I keep a bucket of sand and a container of vermiculite at the ready when I'm starting seeds...larger seeds get a sprinkle of vermiculite, and the smaller ones get a very light sprinkle of sand - then all get misted with collected rain water. Whether there's any basis in fact, or not, I'm a firm believer that everything gets going better with rain water.

Well, it certainly couldn't be much worse than the tap...

I spread perlite on top before I sow the seed then use a spray all bottle to wash teh seed over the perlite and into the spaces between.

Ah, what a lovely screen name, John!

Thank you. I have been wanting to change to oldherbacious

LOL! Another good one, heh!

I usually just plant the seeds and hope for the best! Maybe I SHOULD do something better than that! I love rain water! Maybe someday I'll get a rain water collection system...the only way I can hope to have much here!

My favorite tip for basil works well for a lot of other seed-grown plants, too... Learned this from the late Tom DeBaggio... clump transplanting! Sow seed fairly thickly in rows in a shallow seed-starting flat. When they have 1-2 pairs of true leaves, break a row of seedlings away and then gently separate the row into little clumps by "massaging" the roots... don't prick out a bunch of seedlings and gather them into a clump, just break away a little clump with their roots all tangled together. Pot up the clump, planting them deeper than they were growing in the tray, up to their first set of true leaves. In effect, your clump is like a well branched tiny plant with a lot of nice roots, right from the start!

Aw...I like that one! Maybe I'll try it. I think I've got some tiny basil accidentally seeded thickly. I think I got distracted while doing seeds and went back and seeded the same little container over again, forgetting I'd already done it.

There's a DG article I wrote (one of the "Seed Starting 101" ones) with more detail and photos, if you need them. Joyanna and I just sowed 12 kinds of basil in thick little rows, using a BBQ rib container from Sam's as a seed starting tray.