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Show Seed Tapes: Hen Steps In Gardening By BILL MEACHEM In the 30 or so years that I have been involved in home gardening, perhaps the most dramatic innovation in plant propagation has been the seed tape. SEED TAPES are not new, you'll tell me. True, they have been around for several years. I've refrained from writing about them until I had used them more and ironed out some kinks in their use. As you all know, seed tapes are ribbons of a plastic-like material in which seeds are imbedded an inch or so apart. THE STRIP itself dissolves when it comes into contact with water, leaving only the seeds. Seed tapes, I've found, are great for starting little seed-ings. seed-ings. 1 use a flat tray of some kind - sometimes large, sometimes small. When growing seedlings from tape in these trays they are nicely spaced apart and do not need to be transplanted until they are ready to go out into the garden. This saves time. 1 USE a combination of sterilized soil, peatmoss and vermiculite - a third each for my seed-starting mix. This mixture will sustain the seedlings with a little nutrition nu-trition until it is time to plant them in the open garden. NOW, HERE'S a trick I learned. Keep the seed-starting soil dry when you are piamig uic aK!. rts swu as it gets moist, the tape becomes sticky and hard to work with. Because the tape holds the seed in place, you can water them from the top with a fine spray as soon as the tape is in place. YOU'LL FIND some gaps with certain seed tapes. This is to be expected. Not all seeds will germinate - even in the regular seed packet. But you can give the seedlings a better chance for survival if you prevent bugs by spraying the soil with an aerosol such as Raid House and Garden before placing the tapes. ONE OBJECTION I have heard about is that tapes are expensive. Yes, they cost a. little more than packet seeds. But I don't mind paying a little lit-tle extra for the convenience of not having to transplant my seedings. Also, if I put tapes in rows outdoors, I will eliminate the first thinning, and give the little seedlings a better chance of getting over the first few weeks without competing com-peting among themselves. |