Well, now that we’re a week or so past our last frost, it’s a good idea to revisit those direct sows!
Just like with indoor germination, there’s bound to be some seeds that don’t germinate in our outdoor sowing. If you’re growing intensively, it’s always a good idea to swing back around and “fill in the holes” when it comes to those direct sows! It’s important to address this fairly early in the season, shortly after you’re seeing initial germination on your existing seeds.
When possible, we like to perform this effort shortly before we’re expecting some rainfall, like we are next week. This saves us quite a bit from top watering, helping us to get that second round of germination fully established. We don’t usually perform a third round of germination, except for when we’re intentionally succession sowing.
While you’re at it, round one of weeding is always good to practice around this time as well. Inevitably, you’re going to start seeing those unwanted plants start to take hold. And, if you’ve gotten any significant rainfall in the past weeks, those weeds are likely starting to rival your intentionally grown seeds! Once your intentional plants get well established, they’ll start to shade out further weeds from germinating at all.
If needed, you can also combine any thinning efforts that you need to accomplish with this “second pass” of your direct sows. Just like with our indoor sowing, we generally want “one plant per site.” Competition generally isn’t good for our plants, especially root veggies like carrots. Competition that’s too heavy can impact both seeds, so it’s best to thin things out.
The main reason we do this “extra effort” is to make sure our soils are working as hard as they possibly can. This is one of the key things with intensive gardening, that you’re maximizing the smaller space you have. This second sowing can easily increase your harvests by 10% to 30%, depending on your seed viability, so it’s well worth the effort.
We’re definitely excited to see our garden coming along this year! Things are really starting to take off. It’s looking like we’ll be able to bring back the first of our “Flower Fridays” this week, so we’re super stoked about that!
We hope things are going well for you in your gardens as well. Good luck and keep those plants growing!
