Heat one pint of water to the boiling point.  Dissolve in 2 to 3 tablespoons of ordinary cornstarch.  Place the mixture in the refrigerator to cool.  Soon the liquid will become a soupy gel.  Gently mix this cool starch gel with the sprouting seeds, making sure the seeds are uniformly blended.  Pour the mixture into a 1-quart plastic zipper bag and, scissors in hand, go out to the garden.  After a furrow—­with capillarity restored—­has been prepared, cut a small hole in one lower corner of the plastic bag.  The hole size should be under 1/4 inch in diameter.  Walk quickly down the row, dribbling a mixture of gel and seeds into the furrow.  Then cover.  You may have to experiment a few times with cooled gel minus seeds until you divine the proper hole size, walking speed and amount of gel needed per length of furrow.  Not only will presprouted seeds come up days sooner, and not only will the root be penetrating moist soil long before the shoot emerges, but the stand of seedlings will be very uniformly spaced and easier to thin.  After fluid drilling a few times you’ll realize that one needs quite a bit less seed per length of row than you previously thought.

Establishing the Fall and Winter Garden

West of the Cascades, germinating fall and winter crops in the heat of summer is always difficult.  Even when the entire garden is well watered, midsummer sowings require daily attention and frequent sprinkling; however, once they have germinated, keeping little seedlings growing in an irrigated garden usually requires no more water than the rest of the garden gets.  But once hot weather comes, establishing small seeds in the dry garden seems next to impossible without regular watering.  Should a lucky, perfectly timed, and unusually heavy summer rainfall sprout your seeds, they still would not grow well because the next few inches of soil would at best be only slightly moist.

A related problem many backyard gardeners have with establishing the winter and overwintered garden is finding enough space for both the summer and winter crops.  The nursery bed solves both these problems.  Instead of trying to irrigate the entire area that will eventually be occupied by a winter or overwintered crop at maturity, the seedlings are first grown in irrigated nurseries for transplanting in autumn after the rains come back.  Were I desperately short of water I’d locate my nursery where it got only morning sun and sow a week or 10 days earlier to compensate for the slower growth.

Vegetables to Start in a Nursery Bed

Variety Sowing date Transplanting date
Fall/winter lettuce mid-August early October
Leeks early April July
Overwintered onions early-mid August December/January
Spring cabbage mid-late August November/December
Spring cauliflower mid-August October/November 1st
Winter scallions mid-July mid-October