Is it a heated mat you have or a propagate with lid? You don’t need to exclude the light- both those plants need good light. Have you grown them before? I only as as I would wait a little while for sowing tomatoes as they need warmth and good light- if you sow too early you will have leggy monsters!
Basil will germinate in a pot on the worktop, the tomatoes need to be sown about the end of March or they will be leggy and weak.
I find basil doesn’t like being transplanted so I grow a pinch in a flower pot, that way you can transplant the whole lot into a bigger pot when the roots have filled the first one
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Finally got my garlic in the ground and leftovers in pots. Sowed turnip, peas, spring onion and some more lettuce indoors- Reine des glaces, it’s a lovely lettuce very tolerant of cold, crisp sweet and juicy! Pricked out my rocket. House is somewhere between a skip and a greenhouse at the moment! Must do some housework at the weekend lol!
You can't do housework Flinster, dust is dead so can wait, plants living= more important Whether it is something that germinates quickly or something that takes longer, it is always pleasing, and as you say never tire of.
I germinate seeds for sprouting and just germinated. An ongoing thing every few days. I enjoy how it happens so fast, you see life in seeds in jars and sprouters even through winter with low light levels. A little tongue poking out of sunflower, peas and buckwheat, mung beans. chickpeas. May not be the usual poking out of soil, no bigger crop of veg or flowers but still enjoyable
I’ve sometimes sprouted Rubytoo, should probably do it more often as I love the nutiness of sprouts. I am doing pea shoots though for the worktop in the kitchen and will hopefully be a bit more organised with herbs this year as I failed to get round to it last year! I’m on a steep learning curve with the veg growing this year. I’ve only grown bits and bobs before in one bed with varying success, so planning the beds has taken quite a bit of thought. This year is mostly about finding veg that grows well here and about volume, as it’s hard to visualise how much of something you will use. Exciting though! And you are right about dust! The washing/folding/ironing is getting a bit out of hand though lol!
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I find basil doesn’t like being transplanted so I grow a pinch in a flower pot, that way you can transplant the whole lot into a bigger pot when the roots have filled the first one
Whether it is something that germinates quickly or something that takes longer, it is always pleasing, and as you say never tire of.
I germinate seeds for sprouting and just germinated. An ongoing thing every few days. I enjoy how it happens so fast, you see life in seeds in jars and sprouters even through winter with low light levels. A little tongue poking out of sunflower, peas and buckwheat, mung beans. chickpeas. May not be the usual poking out of soil, no bigger crop of veg or flowers but still enjoyable
And you are right about dust! The washing/folding/ironing is getting a bit out of hand though lol!