Plant Fennel Seeds in Containers - grow your own transplants - up in 5 days

Planting seeds directly into our garden is a waste of time because we live on a steep enough hill that they just wash away during watering and before germinating. So, planting in sterile potting mix and controlling their environment until they emerge works best.

Here's how I planted the Fennel seeds that arrived a few days ago

Clean pots were filled with sterile potting mix
and put into a bottom watering tray. They
were watered from the top to settle the soil.

Paper towel was used to
pre-soak the seeds and the plumped
seeds were sprinkled over the soil surface

Sterile seed starting mix was used on
top of the seeds to the recommended
depth of 1/4 inch and the tray
was tagged. We use a label maker
and put the labels on slices of mini-blind.

Since I planted two varieties, the second
type was planted in round pots so when
the inevitable happens and the tags
become dislodged, I'll be better able
to guess which is which.

Fennel seedlings emerge 5 days after planting in containers

Most garden seeds do not need direct sunlight to germinate. Fennel seeds that require dark to germinate not only need to be covered with a bit of soil but also benefit from being out of drying direct sunlight. These two trays of seeds are inside the shed where their water and light needs can be closely monitored.

After seedlings emerge they are brought outside to a table that is in 6 hours of sun.

The potting mix we used is from Lowe's - about $6 a bag. It is a bark-based mix and we add perlite and vermiculite for container growing.