Sowing your seeds: Looking after them

Watering and feeding

If you’re using rolled up newspaper pages, you will need to store them so that they do not fall apart when you water the seeds.

Place groups of containers in larger plastic containers such as old food trays. Punch holes in the bottom of the food trays to allow excess water to drain away.

You should have watered your seeds as soon as you’ve sown them. Check the compost regularly and make sure it stays damp. Equally, do not over water the seeds.

Don’t put your seeds in an airing cupboard, on a radiator or on a sunny window ledge as those places will be too hot for the seeds to germinate. Similarly, don’t let temperatures drop as low as 10 deg C

After about four weeks, you should notice your seedlings breaking through the sand. The alder and birch should be first to show through.

Don’t be tempted to think the seedlings are weeds. Each seedling will first grow a pair of tiny seed leaves before their normal leaves and needles appear.

Feed you seeds as soon as the first leaves appear and every week thereafter.

Use a liquid feed diluted in water to the manufacturer’s recommendation. Feed the plants as you would water them.

This simple method takes away the guesswork of how much solid or granular feed to use in a small pot.




Thinning

As your seedlings grow, you might need to thin them out. Always remove the weakest (smallest) seedlings or shoots as this will allow the larger, stronger seedlings to flourish.

Hardening off

By the end of the summer term, you should have seedlings that can be left outside to start hardening off so they can survive the winter. The seedlings will continue to grow until autumn so they’ll still need some attention.

Remember to protect them so they are not eaten by insects or animals such as rabbits.

Continue to feed the seedlings until they either measure 10 cm high or either of the birch or alder seedlings lose their leaves.

Transplanting

One thing you will need to do is transplant the seedlings if the containers become overcrowded with healthy trees. You should do this when the seedlings are about 2cm high.

You will need to be careful with this part of the process as you want to take with you the whole of the root system.

Using a teaspoon or something similar, carefully remove the seedling along with enough compost to carry the root system. A teaspoon of compost taken along with the seedling should be fine.

Transplant your seedlings into the same mix of compost and sharp sand in a new pot. Make a hole with your finger and place the seedling into this hole, gently firming the compost around it.

Autumn

As the weather changes and it becomes cooler, trees know it is time to shut down for winter. Both the birch and alder seedlings will lose their leaves, but the pine – a conifer – will retain its needles.

Planting out

Your seedlings should be at least 10cm high to be strong enough to be planted out. Your birch and alder seedlings should reach this height by October/November, but your pine seedling might not be strong enough until sometime in 2010.

Once your trees reach this height, they should be strong enough to plant out.

Next step...

Now click on the 'Planting Your Trees’ on the left of this page to learn how to plant your seedlings outside.