Growing 30-40 cm tall, candytuft mixes beautifully with spring annuals or around upright bloomers such as tulips and iris. It is also a good choice to edge azalea beds, flowering trees or to bring colour to the vegetable garden. Because of its talent for accenting other spring blooms, keep a few plants in small pots to use for filling gaps between bulbs or to brighten up a potted display. The `Dwarf Fairy’ mixed, which reach 30 cm and bear pink and white blooms, and the lilac-, purple-, red-, rose- and white- flowered `Candycane’ series are good for mass plantings. They’re also good for vases.

Candytuft is effective massed alone or grouped with other mounding or grey- foliage plants such as dianthus and carnation. Its stout stems are studded with narrow grey-green leaves, so the plant looks attractive even if not flowering.

For an easy cascade, or to soften hard lines, use candytuft to edge paths or drape over the edge of a brick, stone or timber retaining wall. Alternatively, plant it to tumble from the edge of an urn or other container. Candytuft is also handy for filling bare spots in rock gardens where it seems to thrive.

Candytuft’s wide growth also makes it a useful living groundcover to discourage early weeds from becoming established. And, as it grows so easily from seed, candytuft is a great choice for gardeners starting out on a budget.

Other species

Another annual species, Iberis umbellata `Mount Hood’ is slightly taller — growing at up to 40 cm with large, pure white flowers. Iberis odorata `White Pinnacle’ bears elongated tassles of fragrant white blooms. Also peaking in spring when it is in full flower is perennial candytuft,

I. sempervirens `Snowflake’, which flowers from spring to autumn and thrives in cool to cold climates. Shearing it back in late spring stops this form becoming leggy and untidy. Compact new growth will follow. Fertilise with an all-purpose garden food after flowering to encourage these plants to blossom again in autumn.

Growing candytuft

Candytuft needs full sun, with some protection from the hot afternoon sun. It thrives in most well-drained soils. While plants are easy to grow in almost any conditions, they grow and flower to perfection if they are planted into soil that has been improved by digging in compost and a sprinkling of lime or dolomite.

Plants grow readily from seed which can be scattered where it is to grow (these plants don’t like to be transplanted). Seed-sown plants will take around 10 weeks to flower and seed can be sown almost throughout the year; those sown in autumn will flower in late winter and early spring.

If you don’t trust your green thumb at seed raising, look for punnets or small pots in a range of colours at your nursery in early spring. Pots or seedlings have the benefit of instant colour. Space candytuft about 15 cm apart and grow in rows or in drifts among bulbs or spring-flowering shrubs and annuals. Use mulch between the plants to deter weeds while the plants are growing. If weeds appear, gently hand-pull or hoe them away to avoid root competition.

As well as giving easy, long-lasting colour in the garden, candytuft is rarely troubled by pests or diseases so it is a pleasure to grow. If problems such as mildew occur (seen as a grey to white powder on the leaves), simply remove plants as they are probably nearing the end of their growth cycle anyway.

Capture the spirit of autumn with a clourful harvest of decorative fruit and vegetables. Choose inedible varieties you won’t be tempted to pick, and enjoy this display on chillu autumn days.

A wiggy basket evokes the spirit of harvest festival when it is filled to overflowing with an autumn bounty of vegetables and fruits, both edible and inedible.

Ericas and pernettya thrive in acid soil while the peppers in this arrangement do not. The peppers were sunk into the display while still in their own pots, each filled with the standard potting soil they prefer.

Shiny scarlet and orange peppers and crinkly purple cabbages make an exotic take on the traditional harvest-festival basket in the main arrangement on the right. The pepper used is Capsicum annuum, the ornamental pepper. These are, in fact, edible (although not necessarily tasty), but be sure not to confuse this pepper with Solanum pseudocapsicum whose fruits are extremely poisonous.

Ornamental peppers vary in colour and shape from the long tapering red hot chilli peppers to the cone-shaped peppers used here, which are white or green when immature and eventually turn scarlet or purple.

Gathering the Fruits

The bare branches of late autumn trees are echoed by a rustic planter — a loosely woven twiggy basket — which adds to the sense of a newly gathered autumn harvest. The basket has been lined with dyed sisal fibre, a longer- lasting and more environmentally friendly choice than moss. Plant the cabbages and peppers close together for maximum impact and to help retain moisture: this is an arrangement that needs to be kept well watered.

In frost-prone areas, keep the basket raised above ground level and place it in a sheltered spot — perhaps near a back door or under a kitchen window. All these plants are annuals and are best discarded after two or three months or as soon as frost strikes.

A Splash of Red

In the alternative arrangement, ornamental peppers add brilliance to a pair of glazed pots filled with the perennial evergreens Erica gracilis and Gaultheria mucronata.

The pink sheen of the gaultheria berries, the glossy peppers and the oily blue-green glaze on the pots all work together to give a superbly rich effect. You can leave the peppers in their individual pots and sink them into the soil: the rims will be completely hidden. Once the peppers fade, they can be removed, leaving small empty pots in which you can plant winter pansies or spring bulbs to keep the arrangement going for as long as the erica looks good.

The erica (or heather), Erica gracilis, is a compact bushy plant with tiny urn-shaped flowers that appear in autumn and continue through to spring. Gaultheria mucronata needs to be planted in groups to ensure cross- pollination, if it is to produce its masses of white, pink, red or mulberry-purple berries.

A visual autumn feast can be as bright as any summer collection. For the best display choose pepper plants with fully formed fruits; they will last for between four and six weeks, or until the first really cold snap.

Whether you live in the town or country, you can create an exuberant and relaxed style of container gardening that gives an atmosphere of unrestrained nature.

The effect to aim for is one of spontaneity, so that the container looks as if it has been planted haphazardly — though it takes careful planning to make this look beautiful, not messy. The overall shape is crucial: informal designs need to look generous and expansive rather than neat and tidy.

And while a variety of colours can look wonderful, it is usually better if they harmonise. Informal displays are a great way to emphasise the texture of an arrangement — for instance, by using daisy shapes and bells, spires and soft trailing plants all in the one pot.

The best time to assemble such a display is when the plants are small and can be packed tightly into the pot. If you wait until they are large enough to see the flower buds, they will have bigger rootballs and the container will accommodate fewer of them.

Casual Container

The most successful containers for informal arrangements have a neutral finish allowing the plants to shine whatever their colour, shape or size. Unlike formal settings, in which plant and pot have a clear relationship, informality can lead to the pots being almost invisible, because they are either clustered in a random group or hidden by tumbling greenery.

Curvaceous terracotta pots have a romantic, relaxed appearance and their surface improves with the patina of time, which mellows and softens the colour. However, the harsh red of new machine-made pots may be softened instantly with a coat of pale stone paint or limewash. Terracotta is a great medium for experimenting with paint techniques such as colour-washing, dragging or stippling. These give a broken finish, and provide colours and tones that harmonise or contrast with flowers and foliage. Or you could try using stencils to add a border of leaves or flower motif to plain flowerpots.

Wood can also be used effectively in an informal garden — half-barrels may be stained in natural shades or their slats painted to echo the colour scheme of the plants. Wooden crates and old fruit boxes make attractive homes for herb or vegetable gardens.

Salvaged sinks, stone troughs and galvanised tubs all make terrific wide, low-level planters for a profusion of trailing plants and are great for scattering seeds of annuals that will give a delightfully free effect.

There are different ways of planting vegetables. You can dig over the entire site and then sow all the various vegetables in blocks of different sizes (depending on how many you need of each kind) with no clearly marked space between them. This works quite well if the vegetable garden is on a perfectly level site, but it does make proper crop rotation difficult.

Most gardeners find that it is better to have carefully marked-out beds in which the various vegetables are planted. These can be level with the ground or slightly raised — and they can be marked off into permanent beds with brick or concrete edges. It is always possible to change the size of the non-permanent beds if you want to grow a large number of one vegetable, while the permanent beds must always stay the same size. Clearly marked-out beds make crop rotation easier, as well as the application of compost and fertilizer — and not all vegetables need the same kind of soil preparation.

Soil for vegetables

My soil is poor and sandy. Will be able to grow vegetables successfully?

Your success will depend almost entirely on how much compost, manure and fertilizer you are prepared to add to your soil. Most vegetables can easily be grown in sandy soil — indeed, many root crops do better in slightly sandy soils than they do in very heavy ones. The best thing to do is to lay out permanent beds in your vegetable garden with the edges quite high above the ground — about 10-15 cm. You can then dig out some of the poor, sandy soil and fill the beds up with good soil and plenty of compost and manure, depending on the type of vegetables which you plan to grow. Perhaps you should start with the less fussy vegetables, such as root crops and spinach, and then go on to grow more demanding crops like brassicas as the fertility of the soil in the beds is built up.

This depends on which varieties you grow. Rand for rand, it is probably not always worth your while to grow your own potatoes or onions. But with other quick-growing crops, it is a different matter. For even though you may not always be able to produce crops for the same price as the ones in the supermarket, your home-grown vegetables will certainly be far superior in freshness and flavour.

Another important factor to take into account is that home-grown vegetables are there just when you need them. This means that you do not have to go out and buy a whole bunch of carrots or turnips when you only need a couple for cooking — you can pull the exact number you need. This also applies to popular salad crops, such as tomatoes, radishes and peppers.

Planning a vegetable garden

I would like to grow my own vegetables, but where should I place the vegetable garden, and how big should it be?

All types of vegetables do best in a position where they get a minimum of six hours of sunlight a day. The most favorable position is a north-east-facing site, where the vegetables will enjoy full morning sun and some afternoon shade. They should also get some protection from cold winds in the winter months. Don’t put your vegetable garden too near large trees or hedges which, apart from producing too much shade, may impoverish the soil.

In the home garden (especially if it is a small one) it may not be possible to have your vegetable garden in an ideal position. So you might have to compromise, but giving the vegetables the maximum amount of sun should be one of your most important considerations. In some cases, it may be necessary to have a summer vegetable garden in one place and a winter vegetable garden in another.

The size of your vegetable garden will depend on a number of factors, including the amount of time you can spend on the garden and, in some areas, how much water will be available during the summer months. The size of your family should also be taken into consideration. If you have a large family and want to have as many home-grown vegetables as possible, you will need a fairly large area — as much as 5 m x 10m. If your family is very small, you will only be able to use a few vegetables. For the average family, however, a vegetable garden which covers about 10-12 square meters should be quite adequate and easy to manage.

For practical purposes, the width of the vegetable beds should be about 1-1,2 m wide, with pathways about 50 cm wide. A rectangular site about 3 m x 4 m makes an ideal vegetable garden, but you don’t have to be rigid about the size or shape.

When to water depends to a great extent on what part of the country you live in, the kind of plants you grow and the time of year. In summer, it is best to water plants early in the morning, as this will keep them damp during the hot part of the day. This applies especially to newly planted bedding plants and vegetables, which may need to be watered again in the afternoon if the weather is hot — and in very hot, dry weather may even need watering at midday as well to keep them from flagging. The watering time is not so important for well-established trees and shrubs, but if you water at midday a lot of the moisture will be lost from evaporation.

Late afternoon watering is not always advisable: certain plants, such as roses, dahlias and tomatoes, are prone to mildew; a fungus disease which is encouraged if the foliage of the plants is damp in the evening. Plants which need a high humidity in summer, such as fuchsias, azaleas and ferns, will benefit from having their foliage lightly sprinkled at midday if the weather is very hot and dry, particularly in the winter rainfall regions and other areas which have dry summer conditions.

In winter, the watering pattern tends to change. In frost-free regions, morning watering is still probably the best, but in colder areas where frost is a problem it is better to wait until the damp soil has dried out a little and conditions are warmer. Plants with soft, new leaves (such as bedding plants and vegetables) should not be watered late in the afternoon as the drops of water on the foliage could turn to ice during the night and cause a great deal of damage. So in the colder regions, it is best to water the garden between early and mid-morning during the winter months.

How often to water

In summer, I usually water my garden every day but lam told this is wrong. Why is this?

If you really soak your garden every day then you may well be over-watering your plants. If the soil is kept constantly damp with little chance to dry out, it could suffer from a lack of oxygen — plants would grow badly and be prone to fungus diseases, especially root rot. On the other hand, if you are only lightly sprinkling your plants, you may not be giving them enough water, particularly the more deeply rooted trees, shrubs and perennials.

It is really much better to soak your garden thoroughly, and then allow the surface of the soil to dry out a little before watering again. In very hot weather, this might bee very other day, while in cooler conditions and if there is some rain, only every 4-5 days. Obviously, newly planted plants should be watered more frequently until they are well established, and bedding plants and vegetables which are shallow-rooted may well need water every day to keep them growing on strongly.

It is most important not to forget to water your garden in winter, especially in the summer rain all regions. Just because it’s cold, it doesn’t mean that your garden won’t need any water. Evergreen shrubs and plants should be watered deeply about once a week, while indigenous varieties from the winter rainfall regions will need watering 2-3 times a week. Certain exotic plants — such as azaleas and camellias — also like plenty of water in winter, while some deciduous plants which come from damp regions should never be allowed to dry out.

Timing a sprinkler

I don’t have much time to water my garden, so I often use a sprinkler — how much water should I be giving my plants at a time?

This depends on the kind of sprinkler — some water much more heavily than others. To be really effective — soaking well down into the soil and not just moistening the top few centimetres which will rapidly dry out — you should give the area the equivalent of 30-40 mm of rain.

To determine how long to leave your sprinkler in one place, put a small, shallow tin or rain gauge in a position halfway between the head of the sprinkler and the outer edge of the spray. Then time how long it takes to fill up the tin or rain gauge to 30-40 mm. With some sprinklers, this may only behalf an hour, while with others it may take up to an hour. When watering, don’t leave the sprinkler on one spot longer than the determined time. Plants can only take up a certain amount of water atone time — giving them extra means that water is going to be wasted.

If you have plenty of room, though, then growing melons certainly can be worthwhile, especially at the Cape, where there is a long, dry season for ripening. Choose some of the new and improved hybrid varieties.

Growing melons

Melons are warm-season fruits which need time to mature, so the seed should be sown early in the summer (September to early December) to enable the plants to flower and set their fruit well before the cold weather starts. The seed can be sown directly into the growing position or individually into small pots and later transplanted. Melons grow best on light to medium soils, with a pH level of between 6 and 7.

In the home garden, melons are usually grown in individual ‘hills’ or ’stations’, about 1 m apart for spanspek and winter melons, and about 2 m apart for watermelons. Prepare the stations thoroughly, a month before planting, as all melons are vigorous feeders. Dig into each station (30-45cm in diameter) about one spadeful each of compost and well-rotted manure and about 100g of bone meal or 2:3:2.

Melons can also be grown in rows — allow 1-2m between rows, and 30 cm between plants. To save space, spanspek and winter melons can be trained to grow on a trellis.

Regular watering once the plants begin to develop (especially as they start to flower) is vital for good crops. Melon plants are prone to fungus diseases, so it is better to surface irrigate, rather than spray the foliage. In really warm weather, give your melon plants a deep soaking at least twice a week.

Feed the plants regularly with a high-nitrogen fertiliser — it is not easy to apply a granular fertiliser once the plants are in full growth, because of their large coverage of leaves. To encourage plenty of sideshoots and more flowers, the growing tip of each main runner should be pinched out when it is about 60 cm long.

The destructive pumpkin fly, whose larvae destroy the tiny, immature fruits, can be a problem and regular baiting of the plants from the time the first flowers form is essential.

Harvesting melons

Because most melons look ready to pick quite a long time before they are really ripe, many home gardeners pick their fruits much too soon. It is important to remember that spanspek and winter melons are not ready to be picked until at least 12-14 weeks after sowing, while watermelons take about 14-16 weeks.

When spanspek and other melons with ‘netted’ skins are ripe, the netting becomes more pronounced, the skin becomes slightly darker and the stalk comes away easily. Ripeness is harder to gauge with winter melons, although their skins do change colour to a more yellowy- green, and the fruit should only be picked when the stalk comes away easily. Both spanspek and winter melons will goon ri pening after they are picked, but they will not develop their full flavour if picked too soon.

Watermelons must only be picked when fully ripe. When ready, the skins become slightly bumpy and the side in contact with the soil turns yellow. If tapped, the watermelon will emit a dull, hollow sound.

Shortage of fruits

It sounds as though your plants are either being stung by pumpkin flies or are not being pollinated properly. Pumpkin flies are extremely destructive and it is essential to apply bait to the plants as soon as the flowers form.

To produce a good crop of fruit, the female flowers need to be pollinated by bees and other insects. If the weather is cool and overcast for any length of time while the plants are flowering, pollination will be poor because bees and insects are inactive in this kind of weather. Once warm, sunny weather returns, pollination and fruit set will improve. Pinching back the growing tips of the runners so that they make plenty of sideshoots and more flowers will help improve pollination.

It is possible to pollinate your plants by hand, a method which is used when melons are grown in a greenhouse or growing tunnel. Hand pollination should be done when the flowers first open in the morning: the petals of a mature male flower are stripped away and its centre is rubbed against the centre of the female flower. This procedure must be followed for three days in succession.

When is the right time to grow tomatoes and how should I go about preparing the ground for them?

Tomatoes are a warm-season crop and the main sowing period is from mid-September to November. But seed can be sown up to a month earlier if you have a greenhouse or some other protected place. The seedlings are usually ready for transplanting about a month later, when they should be about 10-12 cm high. To ensure a continuous supply of tomatoes, make small successive sowings every 4-6 weeks. For the average family, 10-12 plants per planting should be sufficient.

Tomatoes are gross feeders and so the ground must be very well prepared for them. Dig it over thoroughly and work in plenty of compost and cow manure, as well as a balanced fertiliser such as 2:3:2 at the rate of 100g per square metre. The plants should be planted about a metre apart if they are going to be staked, but at least 1,2-1,5 m apart if unstaked.

Staked or unstaked

This depends on the type of tomatoes, as well as on the amount of space you have in the garden. There are two types of tomatoes: determinate tomatoes and indeterminate tomatoes.

Tomatoes in containers

Yes. Tomatoes grow extremely well in containers and in gardens infected by soil fungus diseases or eelworm it is often better to grow the plants in this way.

It is most important to use large pots, at least 35-45 cm in diameter and 35cm deep, as the plants need plenty of root room. Fill the containers with a rich potting soil. Smaller pots can be used for the small-fruited, dwarf tomatoes. For plenty of flowers and an even set of fruit, the plants in the containers must not be allowed to become dry. Tomato plants may be foliar fed with a liquid fertiliser every 4-6 weeks, or with a fertiliser watered onto the soil.

Whitefly can often be a problem on container- grown tomatoes in greenhouses. Spray the tomato plants with permethrin as soon as this pest is noticed.

Changing ground

I’ve grown tomatoes in my border for a few years now. I always feed the soil well with liquid fertiliser, but last year the crop was pretty miserable and I had a good many plant failures, too. What’s the matter?

Probably your ground is ‘tomato sick’. What has happened is that the soil has developed a poor structure as a result of constant liquid feeding. Over the years, there has been a build-up of salts, plant acids and toxic products from both the plants and the ferti lisers, all of which have made the soil sour.

In addition, pests and diseases that attack tomatoes specifically may also be there, transmitted from an earlier crop and now spreading through the border.

Tomatoes grow best in soils that have not known tomatoes before and so it is important to rotate the crops, changing the beds and growing other vegetables (see VEGETABLE GARDENING). If this is not possible, you could remove the soil completely to a depth of at least 60 cm and replace it with fresh soil. Or you could sterilise the present soil with Jeyes Fluid.

If all this seems a bit elaborate, then the simplest solution is to grow your tomatoes in large containers. This method shuts out all soil-borne diseases completely — and at the end of the season you can mulch the garden with the compost in the containers.

Skin split

Splitting is usually caused by unsettled weather coupled with lack of watering. In cold or dry seasons the fruits develop slowly and the skins become hard.

When a warm or wet spell follows, developmentaccelerates, butthe tomatoes are unable to expand without splitting their skins. The only treatment is towater regularlyand never letthe soil dry out completely.

Cutting back

All tomatoes grown as single-stemmed plants produce sideshoots in the leaf axilis — that is, between the leafstalks and the main stem. These must be removed to keep the plant growing upwards and to prevent it from growing into a less productive bush shape.

The sideshoots should be removed as soon as they can be seen. Do it gently, using your

Thumb and finger or a pair of nail scissors. You must be careful not to damage the fruit trusses as you work. Remember that these trusses grow out of the main stem between the leaf stalks. If you miss a sideshoot for a time and it grows large, cut it out as soon as you spot it, and dust the wound with sulphur to keep out disease.

Magnesium check

Magnesium deficiency is the culprit. Magnesium is included in some tomato fertilisers, but not all. Check the label on yours, and if magnesium isn’t listed, change to a fertiliser that does have it.

At the same time, spray your plants with a solution of Epsom salts. Mix the spray at a rate of 90 g to 5l of water, adding a few drops of washing-up liquid. Repeat the do see very 7-10 days until the leaves are all green, and at the same time cut the tomato fertiliser by half. When the plants are once again green and healthy, resume normal feeding.

Green to red

Most gardening folklore contains a nugget of sound sense, and this maxim is no exception. Red or ripe tomatoes give off a gas called ethylene which will hasten the ripening of green ones. Wrap the green tomatoes separately in tissue paper and store them in a covered box — putting one or two red ones in with them. Check them daily and remove them as they ripen — otherwise you’ll have a rotting mess.

Alternatively, if you have eaten all the red tomatoes, put a ripe banana in with the green tomatoes. Ripe bananas give off ethylene in the same way as red tomatoes.

The best way to control this annual grass is to use a pre-emergent seed ki I ler, propyzamide, regularly. The whole lawn should be sprayed every 4-6 weeks from March to June. It is also very important to try and keep the rest of the garden as free as possible from winter grass as this seeds so freely. If you are not sowing any seeds in the garden, you could spray the beds with propyzamide as well.

Weedkiller and fertiliser

The majority of selective herbicides used on lawns are systemic. This means that they act better and faster the larger the leaf surface of the weeds. Feeding the lawn with a high-nitrogen fertiliser such as 4:1:1 will make the weeds grow vigorously with plenty of leaf cover. The lawn should also not be cut for about a week after the herbicide has been applied. Some selective herbicides are quite slow acting and it may take a week or more before the weeds are affected. Rain or water within two

Hours of applying a herbicide will also diminish its efficacy. The grass cuttings from thefirst two mowings after the application of a weedkiller should be destroyed — don’t usethem as a mulch or compost them.

Applying weedkillers

As I simply haven’t the time to dig out all the weeds around my new garden, I would like to use a weedkiller, but I don’t want to damage any of my plants. How should I go about it?

All weedkillers should be used with great care as they are just what they say they are: killers of plants. Make sure that you have got the right type — see ‘Which kind to use’, p. 315 — and read the manufacturer’s instructions thoroughly.

Decide whether you are going to use a sprayer or spot-treat the weeds with a paintbrush or special applicator. Sprayers must only be used on a windless day or the spray could drift onto other plants and damage them. Spot treatment — treating individual weeds with small amounts of herbicide — is very time- consuming, particularly if you have a great many weeds in a large lawn area. However, it is certainly a much safer way of eradicating a few weeds than overall spraying — and it is the only method of eradicating grasses from in between vegetables and from shrub borders. When using a systemic herbicide, the weeds are not killed off immediately and may take a week or more before they start to wither, so don’t be tempted to spray again after a few days because the weeds do not seem to be dying.

You should always keep a separate sprayer for applying herbicides. If the sprayer is subsequently used for feeding or applying pesticides, the herbicide residue could easily damage garden plants, even though you may have washed the sprayer out thoroughly.

Stored in a dry place, most vegetable seeds remain good for two or three years, even though the packet has been opened. It’s best to keep the seeds in a fridge or an airtight jar in a cool, dry place such as a shed or garage.

Germination rates gradually decline, however, so if you have any doubts, make a test sowing of, say, 20 seeds in a seed tray indoors. The result will show whether it is worth sowing the rest in the garden. You can apply the same principles to saving the seeds of flowers.

When it’s worth soaking

I’ve heard that seeds of members of the pea and bean family should be soaked in water before sowing. Is this true — and if it is, what good does it do?

The only advantage in soaking the seeds of legumes such as peas and beans is to speed up germination. And it doesn’t work with every member of the family. Dwarf French beans, for instance, have a tendency to ‘drown’ — they become waterlogged and die.

On the other hand, soaking the seeds of garden peas, runner beans and broad beans for about 24 hours before sowing gives you a head start of three or four days over the conventionally sown, dry seeds.

Coping with tiny seeds

How can I get even germination of small seeds like those of primulas? Should these seeds be sown outdoors?

Use a good seed compost and sow the seeds indoors in a shade house or greenhouse. Very few of the species with fine, dust-like seeds wi I l do as well if you sow them outdoors in open ground. Once you’ve prepared your compost in seed pans or trays, mix the seeds with about four times their own volume of river sand — just add it to the seed packet and shake it about.