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sowing seed indoors / pricking out seedlings

> On the basil example I have to disagree with Andre. I have pricked
> out my basil seedlings every year for about 4 times now. I sow them
> in little pot very close together and I prick them out in small
> containers (about 3-4 cm) when their first real leaves are showing.
> This means that they are still very small to handle. I manage it
> with a bamboo shop stick that i've cut into a fork , and a large
> dose of patience

I read somewhere -- I can't remember where now -- that you can save
all those little stirrers from the coffee at McDonald's (they look
like miniature paddles) and use those for pricking out the seedlings.
 I have been wanting to try that for a long while now, but am going
to have to make it a point to get coffee at McDonald's a few times!
I thought it was a great way to recycle stuff -- very frugal.

On the other hand, if you sow very carefully sometimes you won't have
to prick out the seedlings.  Unless the seed is extremely small, I
use a pair of tweezers and sow two seeds at a time in each cell (I'll
pick the strongest of the pair to keep, and snip off the other one --
increases probability of having a plant in each cell).  It takes
time, but it certainly has increased my success with seedlings
because I don't have to cut them apart at transplant time.

When I am sowing seeds indoors, I tend to prefer using the Jiffy
strips (10 square pots connected together, in two rows) or my APS
units.  I have tried Jiffy peat pots but don't care for their
performance.  I occasionally use just a seed flat with seed-starting
mix spread inside, but only for very tiny seeds.  This is generally
where the pricking out is needed.

Joan
cmathew@airmail.net
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/8098/
USDA gardening zone 7b (just north of Dallas, TX)
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