How To... Make Your Own Seed Raising Mix

This isn’t going to be a very practical “how to” for you unless, of course, you live in a place where you have access to coconut husks… but I’m writing this because I think it’s incredibly cool making your own seed raising mix of local materials.

If you’re developing a garden in NZ, you head down to your store, buy what you need, seeds, potting mix, seedlings, or plants, that stuff that makes the plants grow strong and big…

Well not here. It took two trips down to a little seedling place to get 49 lettuce seedlings. You can’t buy any less than that. They didn’t have capsicums, bok choi or anything else I wanted, and they wouldn’t sell me the passionfruit plants they had sitting there… I gave them my number just in case they change their mind… (crossing my fingers on this one).

Anyway, the point is, the modus operandum in NZ is simply not the same here… if there is a modus operandum.

So it is with seed raising mix. Someone sent my friend, Jemma, some rocket seeds… yay. So Jemma passed them onto me to raise them. But I need “ground for my nursery.” So here’s how you make it, local style.

Get some really old, moist, rotting coconut husks… (because I’m sure you’ve got them sitting around somewhere…)

Agitate them or rub them on something, like wire mesh, to rub off the flesh of it. When you’re finished it will look like this…

Beautiful, deliciously fertile husky stuff.

Mix one part sand (from the beach) with one part soil (from the garden) and one part of this beautiful, deliciously fertile husky stuff in your nursery box.

Then when it’s nicely mixed, put in your seeds and watch them grow… literally. Things grow so well in this climate, you can almost see them growing! Almost.

As you see,

I burst a tomato and squirted the seeds into the seed raising mix. If what happens last time happens again, I’ll have these wonderfully strong, deliciously sweet tomato plants coming up in a few days time.

So, how do you make your seed raising mix??