DIY

DIY Seed Tape for Your Winter Vegetables

With a bit of planning, your garden can be just as good in the winter as in the summer.

Credit: Andrea Tucker

Supplies for making your own seed tape

As the end-of-summer vegetables are being harvested, start prepping your garden with a new crop of cold weather loving plants

 

I wasn’t born with green thumbs, so to make the gardening process as simple as possible, I made some DIY seed tape to help the planting process.

 

Seed tape can be used for winter or summer planting and is a great sanity saver when working with extra small seeds such as lettuce or seeds that you’ve collected from previous harvests. Seed tape is also a fantastic way to make sure that seeds are properly spaced out, which can be hard when you are outside and the wind is blowing, often resulting in a “misplaced” carrot in the radish section.

 

Store bought seed tapes can be expensive and they often are only available for certain types of vegetables. So why not make your own?

 

DIY seed tape for your winter vegetables

 

Materials:

 

  • Paste: Mix 1/4 cup flour and enough water to make a “paste”
  • Strips of newspaper (B&W only)
  • Seeds (I used beets for this tutorial)
  • Tool to dab the glue on to the paper (I used the end of a chopstick)

 

DIY seed tape for your winter vegetables

Step One:

Cut newspaper into long strips.

 

Step Two:

Read the seed package to see how far apart seeds should be and dab glue according to the length listed.

 

DIY seed tape for your winter vegetables

Step Three:

Place seed on wet glue and let dry.

 

DIY seed tape for your winter vegetables

Step Four:

Bring your finished seed tape to the garden. Shovel a thin layer of dirt over the seed tape. Make sure that the seed tape is fully covered. Give it a good water and watch your seedlings grow!

 

Planting and harvesting schedule

The following vegetables can be planted and harvested in fall, winter or early spring: beets, carrots, garlic, leeks, broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, brussel sprouts and cauliflower.