This can be a painful chore, but it’s a necessary one that you really can’t ignore. As your precious seeds germinate and sprout, you will have to remove any extras or any little plants that are too close to each other.
Once you’ve planted out your seeds in the spring, it’s always a real thrill to see all those little green shoots after a week or so. You will hate to yank them up. It’s important, so do it anyway. Just make sure you’re doing it right.
First of all, know what spacing you’re after. Use the seed packets as a guide for this. Your plants may not need as much space as you think, and you wouldn’t want to over-pluck your seedlings. It might seem logical to you to allow less space than recommended because more plants means more food. Though two stunted plants might produce more food than 1 healthy one, you will also run the risk of mildew and insect infestation when plants are too clustered together.
Don’t start thinning too soon. Pulling up shoots after only letting them grow for two days isn’t the right approach. Give the plants you’re leaving time to get their roots in place, so you don’t end up pulling or damaging them. Slow-growing plants like carrot can wait several weeks before you need to thin. You also want to make sure that the plants you’re leaving are truly thriving and doing fine. Also, with a little growth under their belts, those pulled thinning can actually be put to use.
Many greens can be used even as tiny sprouts, and larger vegetables like broccoli, cabbage or beets have edible greens at first too. So collect everything when you are thinning, wash them up and add them to dinner. Food is food, after all.
Technically, you could avoid the need to thin by being super meticulous when you place every seed, and allow the proper spacing right from day one. This isn’t a really good approach. Several of your seeds are sure to not germinate, which will leave you with lots of wasted empty space. Overplanting and then thinning really is the best approach.