Kitchen Garden Forum

I have just been watching a rerun of the Victorian Kitchen Garden series and was fascinated to watch Harry Dodson tamping down soil prior to planting seeds.

It is not clear exactly what he was about to plant, but I don't necessarily think it was brassicas.

The tamping down was done by shuffling across the land with both feet kept close together.

Signficantly, most modern gardening programmes don't show this; they simply open a drill in non-tamped down soil, put the seed in and lightly cover.

A friend suggests that tamping down prior to opening a drill would allow soil to retain more moisture, so why is this no longer in favour as the way to sow seeds?

Have you switched from one method to another and seen improved results?

Also, do you water the drill first or after planting and covering seeds?

I'm not so interested in your practices per se, but only if you have seen improvements in results from making changes to previous behaviour.

Funny thing Barry, because it was so wet here yesterday afternoon, i sat and watched the first two of the series......and had nearly forgot just how good they were.
The foot shuffling that you describe, is mostly done to Winter dug soil in the Spring, to just crumble the lumps and firm the soil as you make your way across the plot. This is something that i always do each year, but the soil must be nice and dry, or it will push all the air out of the soil and spoil the tilth for that sowing. I also do this again when i am going to sow a second or third crop of something through the summer..... i roughly dig the ground over, if the soil comes up a little lumpy, i wait for rain, then just as the ground is dry enough to walk over without it sticking to your boots, i shuffle over it and the lumps crumble nicely. This wetting, drying and treading can be repeated several times if the lumps of soil are particularly hard.

Hope that helps a little.

It isn't much use on my clay soil, but I can see the point of doing it on lighter soils.
Personally I prefer to rake the surface smooth and avoid walking on it to limit compaction. Most seeds germinate well like this and you can adjust the firmness of the soil to suit when you plant them on from the seed bed.

I suppose if the soil is solid and level the seeds will all germinate at the same time, whereas mine might vary in depth with it being looser and vary the germination rate a bit.

My style of gardening is to read up on different methods and then do whatever I like and if it doesn't work adapt it to suit my garden.