Broadcast seeding the fall garden
Broadcasting seeds is one of my
favorite ways of planting most vegetables (with the exceptions of big
vegetables like squash, corn, beans, etc.) The method is most
appropriate for gardens with permanent beds in which you want your
vegetables to spread out and cover all of the available space. To
broadcast plant, I simply fill the palm of one hand with as many seeds
as I want to put on the bed, separate my fingers, and jiggle my arm
until the seeds bounce to the ground. Once you get the hang of
it, you can broadcast seed a bed in less than a minute and end up with
well-spaced seedlings.
The one difficulty with broadcast seeding is
that the seeds sit on the soil surface, which means trouble
germinating during hot, dry summer days. (In the spring, I
rarely have issues with germination even though I don't cover my
seeds.) But if you rake the top half inch of soil to the sides of
the bed, broadcast seed, then carefully pull that excess soil back on
top, you can have the best of both worlds --- quick seeding and
efficient germination. I tried out this method a few weeks ago
with the first of our fall carrots and was so pleased with the results
that I think it will be my new broadcast-seeding standby.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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