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How to Tell The Difference Between Sown Seedlings and Weeds

Author Bio

Emma Gallagher is a Brit living in North Carolina. She grows organic gardens and... Read More

If you are new to gardening or even an experienced gardener at times, it isn’t always entirely obvious what is germinating in your soil.

Tomato, basil, and kale seedlings might be obvious to seasoned veggie growers, but what does a tiny toothache plant or a chamomile seedling look like? You wouldn’t be the first to either nurture a plant, thinking it was one thing only to find that you have raised a nice crop of weeds or unknowingly weed out the very seedlings you were trying to grow.

If you are a really experienced gardener who has been sowing the same seeds year after year and has been paying close attention to the weeds or volunteer plants that grow in your neck of the woods, then this might not be an issue. But, to the new gardener, having some tips on how to tell the difference between a sown seedling and a weed is pretty useful.

Direct Sowing Versus Starting Seeds in Pots

Sowing seeds directly into the soil in your garden can actually make spotting your sown seedling a little harder. Unless you have immaculately kept soil that has almost no weed seed in it, you are going to have weed seeds and, hopefully, your sown seeds popping up around the same time.

Planting seeds into soil in pots has the potential of being a little more foolproof, but this is only the case if you use a new sterile potting mix that doesn’t have any weed seeds in it. This can be achieved if you buy it from a nursery in bags. Compost that you make yourself at home, though wonderful, may not have reached the temperatures needed to kill any weeds seeds in it.

Sowing a Control Group

If you are direct sowing your seeds outside in a place that will likely have weed seeds in the ground, too, you could plant a small control group of seeds.

For this, you will have to sow some seeds into the earth and a few in a pot with sterile potting mix in it. Leave the pot with the seeds next to the row you sowed into the ground. When seedlings start to sprout, you can compare the ones in the ground with the ones in the pot and weed out the imposters.

Though you may not be keen on buying soil when it is so easy to make your own, you need only do this for your first year of gardening. After that, you will have a knowledge of what your baby plants look like.

Mark Your Rows

seedlings in rows in garden

Source: Forest and Kim Starr/Wikimedia Commons

If you have individually sown kale, cucumber, and tomato seeds, you can simply mark each planted seed with a twig or stick. If you see seedlings that look alike growing right in front of your marker, you are in for a good chance that it is the seedling you are going for.

If you have such tiny seeds, like chamomile or herb seeds, that individual planting isn’t really feasible, plant your seeds in a row and just mark the row. You can mark at the end of the row or even run a piece of string from one stick to another. If you have a whole bunch of seedlings that look the same growing along the exact line that you planted, you are again probably onto a winner.

Mulch Heavily

Another way to spot your seedlings a mile off would be to mulch out any other soil aside from the row or circle where you have planted. It is not to say that no other seedling will sprout in the row of soil that you have left exposed, but it will help you to identify exactly where you sowed seeds.

Learn Germination Rates

Just learning a little about the seeds that you have sown will be most helpful in knowing what is popping up. Seeds packets will often give you a guide as to how long it takes for them to germinate. It could as short as 3-4 days or even two weeks or longer. Whatever the case, if you have sown seeds that germinate in ten days and you have a bed full of sprouts in 5 days, the chances are they aren’t going to be what you are hoping for.

This isn’t a cut-and-dry solution as many factors affect germination rate, but it can give you at least a rough guide.

Know Your Plant Families

Source: Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden)/YouTube

Another way to spot a sown seedling is to know what plant family it belongs to. For example, many of the seedlings in the brassica, or cabbage, family are very similar, sometimes indistinguishable from each other. If you are hot on what a kale seedling looks like, but you are planting arugula for the first time, remember that their seedlings, at least the first two leaves, look alike. If you have a suspiciously kale-looking seedling sprouting where you planted your arugula seeds, you are probably onto something!