Carrot Seed Tape

Yesterday I made some carrot seed tape.   Carrot seed is tiny and the seed packets come with planting instructions that say, sprinkle seed, cover with light soil and when it germinates, thin to 2 in or more apart.   It always seems a waste and a lot of work, to plant too closely and pluck out a ton of little seedlings.

I found all sorts of instructions on the web for making seed tape, which is a basically a strip of paper, with seeds glued to it.    I took 2 ply toilet paper, separated the plies so I was working with a single ply and then folded the ply lengthwise and cut it in half, to make 4 seed tape strips.

I made a flour and water paste and made way to much of it.   Next time, I'd use a scant tablespoon of flour with a tablespoon or a bit more,  of water to make a runny slurry, like you'd use when making paper maché as a kid.   I used a cotton swab as a paint brush and dabbed little dots of the flour glue along one 1/3 of the paper strip.   This was so that I could fold over the paper and encase the seeds as a bit of storage protection.

 I tried several methods to put the  seeds on the flour paste dots, but most were messy.  The seed was  too tiny to just use my fingers.   A cotton swab with the tiniest bit of flour paste on it worked well for the first 3 or 4 dots, and then got too sticky.  In the end, a pair of tweezers with a needle nose like tip worked best for me.

I dabbed a bit of the paste on the edge of the paper that didn't have the seeds on it, folded it over and gently pressed it down.   I left it spread out to dry, which took far less time than I thought it would.

 When it was dry, I remembered to label it.  I used a fine point marker.  Then I folded up the strips and stored them in a plastic bag to keep them safe until needed.  

I sized my paper strips to fit the area where I'm planting them.   

You could use paper towel, newsprint, tissue paper etc.   It needs to be something that will fall apart quickly when wet though.

I only used one seed per dot, about 1 1/2 - 2 inches apart.  I didn't measure, just eyeballed it, because the cat kept trying to play with the tape measure while I was using it.  

  I did wonder though if I should have put 2 seeds on each dot.  It would still mean some thinning, but less chance of a bare spot because a seed didn't germinate.

I wouldn't use this for large seeds.  Beans, peas etc are easy to plant but the very fine seed is a bit fussy.  We'll see how this method works.   Fingers crossed.