This Cornstarch Hack Makes Planting Carrots And Other Veggies A Breeze

To grow your own vegetables is to be in a state of constant learning. Having figured out your best tomato planting techniques, you may next wish to try your hand at carrots, which are notoriously slow to germinate ... but all the seeds you plant vanish without trace. It's enough to make you want to bite through your shovel handle, right? We've got a tip that will save your pearly whites, make planting carrots easier, and can give you actual veggies at the end of the growing season. Say hello to fluid sowing. While it's been the BFF of some home gardeners for years, the internet has brought this nifty method to a bigger — and very appreciative — audience.

Fluid sowing involves suspending your delicate carrot seeds in a bag filled with a gloopy mix made from a little cornstarch and hot water that's been left to cool. Leave them for a few days to start germinating, then snip a small corner off the bag and pipe the mixture into drilled lines in the ground. Don't worry about having wobbly hands or gaps in the line, as it doesn't have to look pretty! Cover your seeds, and before you know it, there'll be a row of carrots just waiting to be pulled.

There are two main reasons fluid sowing works particularly well for carrots, though it's also great for other veggies with small seeds, like celery or parsnips. First, it combines pre-germination, which kick-starts slower crops before they go in the ground. Second, the gel keeps the seeds hydrated throughout this crucial germination period, increasing the chances of them maturing and boosting your vegetable harvest.

Lots of gardeners have used cornstarch gel to pre-germinate and plant carrot seeds, but it's far from the only fluid sowing way. Wallpaper paste was also very popular (presumably among green-fingered DIY enthusiasts) and remains so to this day, though if you are going to try it, make sure to use a paste that doesn't contain fungicides. If wallpaper paste doesn't appeal and you're all out of corn starch, after your latest batch of cookies, a blend of flour and water will work just as well.

Cornstarch or wallpaper paste solutions aren't the only methods to pre-germinate carrot and other seeds, either. A damp paper towel rolled up and popped into a sealed baggie can be very effective, or you could splash out a few dollars on seed tape. Made of tissue-like paper with evenly spaced-out carrot seeds inside, it's simply laid in the ground — practically no planting guesswork required. 

Some gardeners have even shared their own version of seed tape, using cheap toilet paper, on social media. Seeds are placed in the middle of each sheet and another glued on top, using the same wallpaper paste or a flour-and-water combo as fluid sowing, creating a pocket before they are popped in the ground. One commenter on Facebook said they'd grown their biggest-ever carrots using it. We think it's worth giving it a go!