Expert Tips for Sowing Vegetables Seeds Successfully in Dry Weather

Growing Your Own Vegetables

When you have decided that you are growing your own vegetables, and when sowing vegetables seeds, where there is the slightest suspicion that the soil is not sufficiently moist or, because the weather is particularly hot, it is likely to dry out, drills should be soaked before sowing.

The most satisfactory way to do this is to:

• Use a can without the rose on but with a small plug of wood or cork fitted into the spout. The plug, which should be about 1 1/2 inches long, should fit securely.
• Make a ‘V’ shaped cut in one side with a knife or hacksaw so that a trickle of water can escape when the can is tilted.
• Take out the drill in the dryish soil slightly deeper than normal and with the trickle of water, wash down the sides so that the bottom of the drill is liquid mud.
• Sow the vegetables seeds on the mud and cover with the dry soil tamping down lightly with the flat of the rake head.

The object of this is to moisten the soil where it is needed, not to superflcially wet a large area with the rose on the can. Otherwise this will be rapidly evaporated by wind and sun and soil moisture will actually be sucked up from lower down.  After sowing vegetables seeds in this fashion there is no need, however dry the conditions, to water overhead.