Seed Is The Shizzle! 14/8/21

I love everything about seed prop. I love the fact that you can build numbers of amazing plants, I love the fact that you have to be patient sometimes, I love the fact that some seed needs almost ritualistic levels of processing to instigate germination and I love the fact it is cheap and actually free from your own stock, ensuring a guaranteed supply for-almost-ever!

The only drawback of seed production is the space needed for sowing and the subsequent area required for holding young plants while they grow for either sale or planting. This will be one of my biggest challenges here at the nursery and I know I’m never going to have enough space. This is why I’ve decided to try and sell my stock at the liner (9cm pot) stage. This also has the added benefit of keeping costs for everyone down to a minimum thanks to less compost use, cheaper postage, less plastic use, as well as being able to provide people with a plant that will quickly catch up with traditionally sold stock when planted correctly or potted on again by customer. This model will also hopefully ensure I’m always moving stock on, so will help free space up needed for ongoing propagation.

Part of my philosophy on setting up this nursery is to produce material the ‘old’ way, that is via seed and vegetative prop from stock plants. This will of course mean that for the first few years the variety of plants available will be fairly limited until stock ‘in the wings’ has developed enough for sale or propagation. I’m not a particularly ambitious person and I’m not entering this project with the sole purpose of making my fortunes. A little bit extra on top of my wages that I can use to cover costs and stash in savings is as much as I’m hoping for, it’s the absolute delight that producing plants gives me and the thrill of seed midwifery that really drives me on and if I can share them with people for a bit of extra cash, bonus!