Direct sowing vs seedling trays

[Mark]

Here's a really good to the point video about direct sowing food crops in the home garden by Patrick (a YouTube Gardener I follow) he makes several good points - enjoy!

 

[ClissAT]

Direct sewing is fine unless there are rodents digging up & stealing the seeds or earth worms eating the seeds or other soil livestock eating or opening the seed.
Then there are the soil borne diseases & fungi that invade the softened seed.
Sometimes I direct sew other times I use trays. Depends on what the crop is.
Recently I set a bed of corn direct sewn but only 3 came up. The rest had vanished.
So I set the same number in tall tree seedling punnets so they get a bit of size on them before I plant them out.
They have emerged already so at least most should survive now.
Inbetween the directly sewn corn seed I put a few snow peas & a pumpkin with 3 black zucchini down one side but they all failed. I couldn't even find the old seed so something ate them all!

 

[Mark]

Yeah the dreaded field mouse is pretty good at sniffing out seeds and they will graze down emerging seedlings also - as do possums...

However, I usually have fair success when sowing directly. Especially, carrots, onions, salad crops, and many other regular vegetables.

Best to sow heaps and then thin out if necessary.

 

[Mary Playford]

I love direct sowing. In my opinion the plants are much stronger than the tray sowing. But then, it depends on what you are growing. I direct sow nearly all my plants. I will tray sow if I want to start my seeds early. So, for the most part it depends on your soil

The way my folks did theirs (their version of tray swing) when I was young, they make a bed, sift the soil, sow the seeds (say tomatoes) and cover it with coconut fronds. When they are about a couple of inches tall, we divide them and transplant them to another bed so they can grow bigger and stronger for the field. Most seeds they direct sow in the ground.

 

[Flatland]

As far as l go it depends on the plant. Carrots I always direct sow I've never had any luck transplanting them but tomatoes peppers & other summer veg I normally put in seedlings. a lot depends on snails, bugs & how cold the soil is. When I was in the Adelaide Hills the growing season was so short that I had to start lots of veggies in trays or summer would be over before anything had started to produce. It may be different here as the growing season is much longer but old habits die hard.

 

[Mark]

When I was in the Adelaide Hills the growing season was so short that I had to start lots of veggies in trays or summer would be over before anything had started to produce.

That's a good point and even in the subtropics (or any climate I guess) the mistake of not having a long enough growing season can be made easy enough so starting early in trays can help dramatically when it comes to getting a yield from a late planting.