Benefits of seed mats and seed tapes.
How to plant a seed mat.
Prepare your soil just as you would to plant grass seed in other parts of.
These types of blankets can be used in sparse areas over existing grass to help your lawn fill in evenly.
A biodegradable paper strip or mat embedded with seeds spaced at just the right distance means that gardeners don t have to thin plants after germination and no seeds are wasted.
Sure if you make them yourself you do have to invest time preparing them but that is time spent comfortably seated indoors.
Using seed mats a gardener can plant a 100 square foot area in about an hour.
Seed mats also limit seeds being wasted due to them being planted too close together or at the wrong depth.
With netless biodegradable pennington seed starter mats seed stays put where you plant it.
Place the seed flat on top of the mat evenly distributing the heat source across the bottom of the flat.
I have used seed mats for sowing carrots lettuce and spinach with.
A seed blanket also protects seeds and emerging blades so animals and birds do not eat them.
Seed mats are helpful for planting tiny seeds such as lettuce and carrots that are hard to sow one at a time.
Leave the heat mat on at all times until the seeds germinate.
Instead of scattering seeds then thinning later creating seed mats allows you to space out the seeds according to the suggested spacing on the back of the seed package or square foot garden spacing recommendations.
Read the back of the seed packet to verify the temperature requirement of your seeds.
Most plants require a soil temperature of 70 to 72 degrees fahrenheit but some plants like peppers require warmer temperatures of 80 to 85 fahrenheit.
Prepare and plant your slope or hill.
Although seed mats don t provide an instant garden they are a shortcut to growing plants from seed.
Using either single ply toilet tissue or a paper napkin you glue seeds to the paper at the spacing you want allow to dry and then cover the mats with soil or weed free potting soil.
Make your seed mats over the winter so you ll be ready to start planting as soon as the warm weather arrives.
Seed mats are especially helpful for planting teeny tiny seeds like lettuce carrots radishes spinach and many herbs.
Check the flats every day to make sure the heat is held at a steady temperature and the soil has consistent adequate moisture.
Set the seedling tray on top of the heat mat.
Heating the soil generally causes it to dry out more quickly.
They also work well for any seeds that need to be planted shallowly.
As soon as the seeds germinate remove the plants.