Planting seeds outdoors is one of my favourite things to do in the world, I love the smell of the soil, love the way it gets all lodged up in my fingernails. I love raking the soil until it reaches a fine tilth. I love marking out my rows with bamboo and twine. I love rolling the seeds from the palm of my hand into my seed drills.
Every seed or bulb requires spacing when being planted, this lessens the need to thin them out as they grow as all plants need room to grow and expand. Now, you can use a measuring tape for this, you can take your chances and guess, or you can do as I’ve done and make yourself a very simple ruler to mark out your spaces. I stole this little trick from my Dad last year and it has made planting seeds outdoors miles easier. Now, you can, of course, buy planting rulers but why would you bother when you can make a far cheaper one to suit your exact needs?
All you need is a long piece of bamboo, a measuring tape and a pen or marker. Lie your bamboo parallel with your measuring tape and mark off every 10cm with a pen or a marker. I have also marked in every 5cm with a red pen (I also have two more of these with 20cm and 30cm spacing just for handiness sake). Then you can just lie this on your soil, beside your seed drill and use it as a spacing guide for planting. I have used an 8ft long piece of bamboo so I don’t have to keep moving it during planting as it fits my raised beds perfectly.
A simple job like this can make planting so much easier, the less time fiddling about, the more work you can get done. And we all know a gardeners work is never, ever, complete!
