seed planting question

[T]

Hi All,

I planted a bunch of very small tomatillo seeds this year in my ground pots. And they came up, Yippee!

But I did notice something. Some of them came up about 8 to 10 inches away from where I planted them.

I tried not to water gently and not too violently so I would not wash the seeds up. But apparently, I did anyway.

Okay, what did I do wrong? Water to violently by mistake? Not pack them deep enough? (I did about 1/2 inch.) Not press down on the fill dirt hard enough? Something else?

Perplexed,

-T

[songbird]

...

this sort of thing is why many people will do starts in seed trays/cells and then transplant later.

usually for me when this sort of thing happens it means the seeds were not planted deep enough for the type of soil and seeds being used. my method of planting seeds is a bit rough and the depth may vary but i usually have good enough results that i've not had to change.

after planting the soil should be moist enough that when you firm it down a bit then that should hold the seeds in place at their proper depth. if your garden soil is too dry to start with then these goals can be a bit more difficult to accomplish.

songbird

[T]

Hi Songbird,

I think you called it!

The top 1" of the sold was rather fine and dry. Because the tomatillo seeds were smaller than onion seeds, I did not want to plant too deep, so I was still in the dry stuff.

On the other hard, my onions seeds came up nicely for once (I took Mike's advice a watered them every day), but what I did differently was carve a 2" deep trough into the soil, which did hit the damp/moist stuff.

Nice of the tomatillo to come up anyway! Next time I turn over about 4" of the soil so I make sure I get damp/moist stuff.

-T