The problem with pelleted seeds is that they are germinated and will only last a very short time. You may as well spread them on the ground and wet down the soil.

gardendawgie, I'm not sure what your saying about pelleted seeds being germinated. Can you explain further? Thanks

You could try making strips of paper towels and spacing the seeds every couple of inches, then planting the whole strip.
I also don't quite understand why you would want to plant a carrot per pellet, seems like a WHOLE bunch of extra work as opposed to sprinkling and thinning.
Let us know what you decide to do and how it turns out!
Nancy

I would like to know how to pellet single seeds because of the !#%!&*! carrot rust fly (CRF)!

I want to know how to coat individual seeds in a white coating so I can handle them easily to place them at 1" spacing in all directions, then cover them with soil.

After sowing, I have to place a 3' wire mesh fence around the 3x10' bed, then wrap the fence with clear plastic. The CRF only fly two feet or less above the ground. By wrapping the perimeter with clear plastic to 3', I can let the sunlight in and keep the CRF out. This appears to be the only way I can have undamaged carrots. I tried it last year and got the first perfect carrots ever.

Once the carrots are up, I will have to thin them, but I don't want to unwrap the plastic and take the fence apart and put it back together again more than once.

I am aware that pelleted seed doesn't last long (because exposing them to moisture tends to start the germination process) -- that's fine. I would sow them as soon as they were dry enough to handle, I don't intend to store them.

Sue

I use napkins and Elmers' Glue. Fold the napkins to the desired pattern (use cheap napkins and you can fold to ~1.5 inch squares.) I put a tiny dot of glue to touch/grab a seed and set it lightly onto the glue. The toothpick will stick to seeds better if it's been dabbed into the glue, then wiped off before getting a seed. Let dry well (do not stack napkins until they have dried several hours or overnight or you will get a real mess...LOL)

I then lay the seeds onto prepared soil, put fine soil over the top, then put a piece of floating row cover over the seeded area and anchor with 1x1s or rocks or whatever. I then mist the whole thing well and make sure to do that as needed. I had carrots germinate in my raised beds in about 7 days and they were perfectly spaced and the germination was much better than I have ever seen. This same method works great with beets and other root crops. The beets and chard will need thinning. It's also good with lettuces and other tiny seeds that are hard to sow.

It's a bit obsessive, but I make these on winter nights when I am craving gardening and would otherwise be reading and ordering from seed catalogs... LOL! I have raised beds, so it's a very quick way to plant seeds on winter mornings when I don't have much time and it's cold outside! Can get a 4x12 bed planted pretty fast!

Cindy

belgianpup - why not just buy pelleted carrot seed?

Commercial pelleted seed is usually restricted to varieties that are planted commercially.

I got it from Johnny's. They have it in gardener-size packets.

I may have found a solution... in the bakery.

A woman passed me at the grocery store, and she had a cake in her cart, white icing with those little flat, round multi-colored sugar sprinkle things.

I bought some, mixed up some flour and water (the glue), lined up the sprinkles, put a daub of 'glue' on them with a cake decorator, and dropped one seed on each one. They're drying now.

The sugar will melt when watered, the sugar will feed the microbes, the flour/water glue should dissolve, and the seeds should sprout where I put them.

We shall see.

Sue

I use the paper towel and Elmer's just like Cindy. You can do it in the winter when you are bored.
Keski

Well, scratch that method.

I just did half a dozen first. Then I sat down with a video and did almost 30. The candies are so small you can't hold them, they stick to the glue, the glue sticks to the bamboo skewer I'm applying the glue with, and the seed sticks to the stick.

Then I omitted the candies and just put a daub of flour/water glue on the teflon cookie sheet and stuck a seed into it. That was better, but 3 hours to do less than 600 was hardly what I would call speedy.

I guess I'm going to have to break down and do the seed tape things.

There must be a better way...

Sue

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/c-507-pelleted-carrot-seed.aspx

we have attempted pelleting carrot seed with some success first we took a dog dish drilled a hole in the center and mounted it on a mandrel which I put on my drill press to spin the seed that was the easy part now for the tricky part the coating I mixed 1tbs. of starch in 1 cup of warm water to wet the seed while it is spinning on the drill press . trial and error here one or two sprays to wet the seed then slowly sift a mix of one part plaster of paris and one part bentinite(drilling mud) using a scraper while its spinning to mix them together. use a hair dryer to dry the seed as it spins ,once dry sieve out the fines and repeat till you get the desired size,2-3 mm is what you are looking for hope this helps. remember its not an exact science so you'll have to play around with itill you get it .the other thing I had a problem with is getting sieves to size the seed .hope this helps

Back before the internet, or even self operated Xerox for that matter, I paid a library $2 for a copy of a patent on how to pellet seed. That one involved a magnet and powdered iron which I could never find. However, back to our current thread, someone here or at Google must know how to search patents and procedures for such tasks.

I found the discussion on how to do it. I remembered reading all about this back in early 1870 by a japanese farmer who invented the idea. he used his local clay as I remember it. but some details I forgot. here is a good discussion on it. I think the name given is the person. he wrote a book about this. he was a farmer. I forget the details now. I never tried this. but it looks like you can use clay like he did or it sounds like rock dust is now the preferred thing to use. I remember he mixed it and stirred it round and round in a bowl.

I picked this up off the internet. if you copy some words google should find it. this is the entire article. yes this was the author. I think the book was called One Straw Revolution. I am sure your library can get you the book. I got it from the library back in early 1970's there are 4 or 5 editions of the book at Amazon you can read about him here

http://www.onestrawrevolution.net/One_Straw_Revolution/One-Straw_Revolution.html

https://remineralize.org/2009/01/how-to-make-seed-pellets-with-rock-dust/

How to make seed pellets with rock dust.

• January 23, 2009
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Clay pelleted are used when seeds are broadcasted on the surface, to avoid them to be eaten by animals, and as moisture retention under germination. Check out Masanobu Fukuoka (R.I.P.) for more details on no till graingrowing and reforestation. Mr Fukuoka used more ingredients in the clay pellets, assuring inoculation of beneficial microorganisms. I do not describe that. When you have learned to make proper pellets, you can add anything. Rhizobium for legumes, and mycorrhiza for reforesting should be considered.

I am lucky to have very fine rock dust. If yours are more like sand, you can use clay instead.

You need your rockdust or clay to be dried and crushed into a fine powder.

Do this: take some of the rockdust, this one doesnt have to be dry, and mix it with water to something as a yoghurt consistency.Vegans as me can make soya-yoghurt consistensy. Then add the seeds, about a few times the amount of rock-yoghurt. The point is, that the seeds shall be glued together by the mud, one seed to one seed, not a heap of dirt with one seed here and there. Again: when you hold the clump of mud and seeds in your hand, you see one seed by another, that stick together with the mud. Now comes the fun part. Take a few handfulls of this matter into a bucket, and add about five times ore more the amount of dried powdered rockdust or clay. Stirr freneticly in the mix, mixing dry and wet matter, and the seeds will fall apart, one by one, coated in a shell of rocdust. Do not press the mix together like a bread dow, but stirr lightly but vigurously. Crumble apart bigger pieces.

If not used as ones, it is important to dry the seed pellets as quick as possible.

You can olso make big balls with many seeds in one, used for recvitalization of dead land, but then you must mix in organic matter to avoid the seedball to be hard as a rock, but dissolve a little during rain.

Good luck