Worth taking just a little time to work the soil for your seeds into the best condition for germination - so that the seed is assured of support, water and oxygen; it needs to be fine and almost "fluffy"!

• I use a rake to chop up the clods, and then work the soil back and fore to remove weed roots, stones, and twigs.
  • A question - are you sowing very early?   It might be worth covering the bed with black plastic for a week or two to warm the soil up.
• I like to give give the prepared bed a very generous watering several hours before I sow, so that there is a reservoir of moist soil well below the seed.
• Draw out a drill - pressing the rake handle into the tilth gives you a very straight line (useful later, when you want to know which of the million seedlings in your bed are weeds!).
• Sow the seed according to the packet instructions!   Most seeds are sown at a depth of about two and a half times their size; cover them over lightly with soil.
• Give the seed bed a good watering.
• The bit I almost always forget - mark the row ends, and label them.   I also jot down what I've sown, as our beds sometimes get kicked around by foxes, dogs and kids.   And lose my bit of paper!
  • Another question - do your seeds need any special cossetting?   Put an enviromesh tunnel over your carrots (to stop carrot fly), and over the brassica seedlings (to keep flea beetle out).   Or use cloches (anything from cut-down pop bottles, to fancy and expensive bought ones) to give tender seeds a warmer environment.
  • And remember - your seedlings will need a bit more care in these structures, particularly in terms of water.
• Weed the seed bed quite regularly - I try not to let weeds between the rows compete for light with the veg.   I only weed in the seed row itself, when it's time to thin the seedlings - an essential task, however wasteful it may seem, otherwise the vegetables are competiing with each other for light and nutrients.