Woman Randomly Sprinkles an Entire Seed Packet in Her Garden Bed — It Results in ‘Pure Garden Magic’
Imagine if there were a magic dust that, when you sprinkle, makes plants start shooting upwards. The “broadcast seeding” method in gardening is not much different from this visual. As the name suggests, broadcast seeding involves casting or scattering the seeds across a broad area, as Agriculturistmusa.com explains. You can choose exactly where flowers bloom, but when scattering the seeds, there can never be a mathematics too perfect. Gardener Nicole Johnsey Burke (@Gardenary) shared a weird experiment she did by dumping the entire seed packet in her garden bed. It was “pure garden magic.”
“Most seed packages tell you to line up your seeds perfectly, straight in a row. […] But let’s be honest. Planting seeds in such an organized way can feel really tedious and overwhelming, and keep you from planting the seeds that needed to go in the ground yesterday,” Burke told the viewers while sitting in her garden and filming the video. Since she hardly had time, she struggled to sow the seeds in her garden bed, let alone think about their organization. That’s when she thought about dumping the entire packet randomly in the bed, and after seeing the results, she shared her process for fellow gardeners.
The gardener shared that she has designed a system according to which she dumps “just one seed packet” in her garden bed all at once. “I found that these plants get all the resources they need to sprout, and they get exactly the resources they need to keep growing.” Adding a disclaimer, Burke revealed that this seed-dumping method doesn’t work for all the plants. It is ideal for leafy greens like lettuce, mizuna, spinach, butterhead, and arugula, as well as root crops like carrots, beans, and radishes. Flowers like zinnias, coreopsis, and cosmos also derive significant benefits from this method.
Burke suggested that the gardeners consider three key points before venturing on this seeding job. But seeds don’t need to be perfectly scattered in the garden bed to have these three elements.
1. Soil contact
Soil is like the concrete of a house where seeds are supposed to live before they sprout into full-fledged plants. Therefore, they need to feel the intimate touch of the soil, they need to be pummelled by it and enrobed in it. “Seeds need to feel that they're in a place where they can germinate and have a nice home to send down roots and to grow up shoots,” Burke explained.
2. Soil temperature
You don’t usually build the walls of your house with heating filaments or freezing insulators. The temperature has to be just right for you to survive and be comfortable. In the same way, the temperature of the soil needs to be just right so the seeds feel safe and healthy living inside it. “Even if seeds have soil contact, if the soil isn't at the right temperature, the seed won't germinate,” Burke said. The temperature, she said, should be somewhere between 40 degrees and 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Moisture
“Soil needs to have moisture. It needs to have water. Water breaks down the seed coat and makes the seed start to swell and swell and swell some more until it eventually bursts open with both a root and a shoot.” Apart from plenty of moisture, the seeds would require ample light and sufficient underground space where roots can spread and support the plant above the ground.
Burke is not the only gardener who endorses this seeding technique. A Facebook user shared a picture of a lush clump of yellow and purple wildflowers that burst from the grass near an old tree stump where she dumped a bag of wildflower seeds. “I think it's kinda cool!"
You can follow Nicole Johnsey Burke (@Gardenary) on YouTube for more of her "weird" gardening experiments.
More on Green Matters
Gardener Chooses to Let the Weeds Grow Around Their Flower Bed — And For a Brilliant Reason
Gardener Uses a Cucumber to Grow an Entire Lemon Tree — We Were Not Ready For The Results
Homeowner Stunned to Find Native Plant in Its Full Bloom Despite 4-Inch Snow Blanketing Their Garden