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Article: Depending on how much you are going to grow in a greenhouse will determine this next procedure of seeding. Let's start with producing plants just for personal use. Some seeds are so very tiny you might think they look like specks of pepper. These are the kind that make you want to invent a better way and many people have. The Precision English Seeder http://st2.yahoo.com/gardeners/-30-774.html is one of those inexpensive but wonderful alternatives to seeding with out pulling your hair out in frustration or trying to thin a mat of seedlings later . Where was this little beauty when we first started and I was hand seeding plugs trays. Yes I will define a plug tray. It is a plastic tray usually 10" x 20"x 1/2"deep or less, divided into little squares or circles that let each seed have its own little place. They can be divided into 32's up to over 512's. You can view a professional seeder for a small greenhouse business at http://www.sezsdr.com/prod.html#E-Z%20Seeder. At this time, we use a similar vacuum seeder for our plug trays. You use different trays for the different size seeds. Little holes are drilled into the trays, the size being determined what seed you are using, and the holes line up over the divisions in the plug tray. Enough seed is poured onto the tray for two plug trays. I turn on the vacuum and shake the seed back and forth. The vacuum sucks the seeds onto the holes in the seeder plate. When each hole has a seed, I turn the unit over, place it over the filled plug tray and push a lever which breaks the vacuum. The seed then drops onto the soil and in position. I was able to seed 2 to 3 plug trays an hour by hand, I can now turn out a plug tray every 5 minutes and that includes walking the tray to its place on the bench. I saw another inventive way to make a seeder by using an electric shaver and putting a funnel shaped piece of metal on top of it. When you turn on the shaver, it vibrates the plate which you have filled with seed, and it disperses the seed into a row. In this case, you fill solid trays with sterile media, make rows equidistance apart, and move the shaver appliance along the rows. It is not a perfect solution but allows the seed to be applied lightly and pretty evenly. Make sure the trays have some drainage holes in the bottom. I tried to seed tuberous begonias once, and only once. Talk about small seed? Make sure you don't exhale very hard or you will loose the entire package. I didn't have anything to handle it so I simply mixed the microscopic seed up with some sand in a salt shaker; shook it all up and sprinkled it over the dirt filled solid tray. It was not perfect, but it worked.
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