"Seed-snail" testing thread, 2025

I'm hoping to give gamcod a shot this year and it has me thinking about ways to do compliant seed starting.
I have seen the seed "snail" method come up and it looks like an option. ( it's basically a jelly roll of growing medium and fabric or plastic)
I like how space intensive it could be and that I'll be able to easily access and move seedlings.
I also am going to try and keep it as cheap and using reclaimed materials as much as possible.

We got a couple of full closets out of a house clearing auction and I've pulled a few pairs of cotton, denim and khaki, pants that I'm going to cut up for fabric strips. I also have a bit of 100% cotton left over from mask making and a bit of linen to try as well.
I've been collecting some metal baking trays and pans from other auctions and thrifting so I'll use those to keep the rolls in.

I'm going to try and keep this vaguely scientific so I will also be trying seeds in the regular plastic cells I've been given as well as some pressed peat pots and the handful of expanding starting peat disks that came in another box lot. I may do a couple of rolls with plastic strips as well. I have enough beds that these other trials can go there. Hopefully, this will give me some ideas about how well each method works!
I figured that since I was giving this a shot, I might as well share the process.

Thank you so much for sharing this method Dian! I think that it could be very useful to me too. I'd heard of something similar for starting cuttings, and it seems pretty straightforwards. This video gives an overview of the method and sates a few things to watch out for.



If you are using something porous like cloth, you may want a deeper pot so as not to lose too much moisture through the walls. I'm excited to see how you get on - and may give it a try myself!

Thanks for the video link Nancy!
I'm hoping to fill one of the high walled, round pans with fabric rolls so that might compensate for the porosity of the fabrics. We'll see.

I'd love to see how it works for you, if you give some a try!

I missed that video Ashley posted (Gardening in Canada)...I've been *trying* to limit my YouTube time with perhaps maybe limited success...so many rabbit warrens to explore....  She is a soil science grad of my alma mater.

Dian - I envision that looking like a pan of cinammon buns all nestled together...mmm...perhaps I need to do some baking before I consider seeding....

She Who Must Be Obeyed bought a heavy duty shelving unit that was used through the fall to store ripening tomatoes and other stuff in the front entrance...it has now been reassembled in the room where we intend to start seeds.  Part of her reasoning was to be able to get something we could hang some lights from as the seedlings grow.

Good on you for getting creative with the baking pans.  Whatever did we do before the scourge of plastic entered our lives? (tongue planted firmly in cheek)

I think that the number one benefit of this system over "plant cells and peat pots," is the soil depth. I've read several places that a minimum of 3" of soil helps to not just give healthier seedlings, but helps them not to bolt.

I suspect that the only reason that commercial companies can offer all those plant cell transplants is that they've got the whole system on automatic water and artificial fertilizer. I think I would struggle to find a healthy microbe in the whole batch.

What amazes me is how many small seeds put down a 3 inch root within about 3 days, so I totally agree that depth matters.

However, if you have more space than a roll needs, I'd suggest you consider paper pots. They can be made after dark to balance the time cost.
Here's a thread that shows both round ones and square ones: https://permies.com/t/225570/paper-pots

Support will be important for both the snail method and paper pots. I was using some upcycled plastic bins, but as they've gradually been dying, I'm on the lookout for metal restaurant warming trays. Taller pots definitely need higher support.

If you try swapping out plastic or waxed paper for something biodegradable, the seeds will try to send out lateral roots through the paper or cloth wall. How much this will be a problem partly depends on the seed, and partly depends on how quickly you plan to transplant them. The video implies that she will transplant them into a larger pot, but doesn't show what size she's planning to use. I get to skip that step, as my paper pots have enough soil to get many seeds to large enough plants that I can dig a hole and drop the paper pot directly in and not disturb an root that stayed inside. Yes, I often get roots growing out the bottom with things like peas and beans, but so long as I'm gentle, the plants don't tend to have a set back.

Looking forward to how the snails work out!

I thought about paper pots Jay but considering that cardboard is not allowed for gamcod, I figured paper was out too.
I have a few ceramic and metal pots that should let me repot any big seedlings for that plot. I'm going to mostly be planting it with tubers, slips, transplants and direct sowing so there are not going to be a huge number of bigger seedlings to deal with repotting.

We picked up a pile of $5 herb and other plants last year on clearance for 25 cents each. They had nice, deep plastic pots that I've stashed so those should get me through this season at least for some of the other plots. I'm keeping my eyes open for any good deals on non-plastic pots too.

I had already washed the fabrics and clothes in plain soap to remove any residues.
The cotton and linen fabrics were separated into strips by ripping along the weaves. 3 strips of the cotton and 2 of the linen.

The pants were then turned inside out and I cut up the seams to open up the legs.

The bottom half of the leg was folded up to be a guide as it was cut to make an even strip then cut off on the top.

I got 4 strips out of each pair for a total of 12 strips. All at least 32" long. A couple of the denim are shorter since I kept the back pockets as salvage for other projects.

The process took about 20 minutes.

Dian, are those scissors in the photo powered or something?  That's the only thing I can figure with the wire.  I was not aware of anything like that.

My biggest struggle with scissors, particularly those plastic moulded handles, is that their made for right hands and I'm a leftie.  First world problems....

I guess this is better than a dishpan full of seedlings.
Less root entanglement, handy out in the field?
Could we add a chop stick ,dowl, or twisted up rod of paper every few inches for even more separation?
Maybe strips of cellulous sponge.
I wonder if this would work with a roll of aluminum flashing, which is durable reusable and cheap.
I wonder if it would work with winter sowing?

Derek, the scissors are supposed to be able to put out a light beam to help guide your cutting. That part you see doesn't lock in properly.
We got them very cheap, possiblely due to the not working thing, but they are very sharp and easy in the hand so I am happy to use them. ( good fabric scissors are to be treasured)

I actually have a pair of quite good lefty scissors that came out of another lot. I'm ambidextrous in a chunk of things but it turns out using scissors is one of the ones where I'm pretty strongly right handed.

Farida Sober is the originator of this method.  You can see her videos on Instagram, TikTok, and FB.  

My seeds from the Experimental Farm Network arrived and I really needed to get some of them and a few other things going so I did up my first batch of snails.
I used a mix of high vermiculite and peat moss potting soil I had left over from last year since it has not thawed enough here to go out and get stuff for my homemade version.

The black cotton pant strips are too wide. Most of the strips I did are a bit wide but it was severe enough on those that I ended up quartering them. That gave me good sized pieces for the rolls.

Going forward, I think no more than 6" of width.
I also need to get better at the actual rolling. I think the way forward is to leave a bit of extra on the bottom and then it can be folded to close off the bottom and help hold the whole roll together.
5 went into the one metal pan and this was a bit of a monster. With getting the soil wet enough to do the rolling, it was around 7-10 pounds!
The mix of fabrics meant I was able to just draw a map for what went where, rather than trying to label it all. There was so much available room in the rolls I went ahead and filled parts of them with some seeds I'm unsure about their viability, but wanted to try them.

I also filled a bunch of the expanding peat pots we had on hand so there is some duplication for testing. We'll see how it all works out.

So far there are only 2 things that are up. The perennial kales and the multiplier onions. The ones in the peat pots are slightly farther ahead, but it's not that significant.
The smaller peat group looks like it may be going moldy, so that isn't good.

I recently did some germination test on milkweed seeds and ended up with lots of seedlings. They naturally have very long tap roots so I put them in the seed snails. Thanks for introducing this method. Segregation of roots from many seedlings is another important factor. Later on when I transplant them individually in ground, the roots won't be tangled and damaged.

I have to start a few new snails in the next couple of weeks. So far, they are looking to be good.
I had slightly faster germination in the peat pots but the seedlings in the snails are much bigger and healthier looking.
The potato onions are doing really well and getting so big! As are the perennial kales. Some of the skirret and a few of the celeric are coming up but nothing else yet.

Thanks for the update.  Looks like the snails have potential.

It's a bit later than I probably should give gotten to it, but I got a second round of snails made and planted.
I used the black cotton pieces and cut them into quarters.
I packed the soil along the top edges and folded the extra fabric around the bottoms to close it off. This made them much easier to manage.
The smaller sizes should make watering easier since that was a problem with the height of the bigger rolls.
The round tins are a great size and depth but I only have one light cart for the seedlings and really need to use the rectangular bases to get everything to fit.
The seedlings in the peat pots were so much weaker that I potted out a bunch of them as well. I'll wait a bit longer before taking the big snails apart since I am hoping more stuff will still come up.

I was maybe a bit late on getting the rolls planted with the tomatoes and other nightshade, but they started moving fast!
I was also a bit worried since this was my first time doing seed saving from tomatoes as well but I've got lots of them coming up.
The old group is still doing really well. I think I will have to repot the kales in the next week but they are SO much bigger than the peat pot ones it's a bit shocking.

Overall, I am happy with how they are working so far. The first unrolling will be educational.

I decided to go ahead and try the plastic free and cheap potting up option I'd been considering.

A vintage metal baking tray and metal basket from house auctions and then I lined the basket with some of the salvaged denim strips.
Next was a bunch of leaves from the pile to cover and pad the bottom. Then a mix of some of our dirt with some ripped up leaves.
Then I unrolled a couple of the rolls and moved the seedlings.
We'll see how they do

Thanks for the update Dian - nice roots on the seed snail seedlings! how did you find them to handle? were they much tangled or easier than you would expect from a 'flat' sown seed?

I have opened up and potted out my tomato seedlings.
It was a bit easier, I think, to get them separated but I probably made the snails a bit thicker than ideal.  If they were very thin, then there would very little option to tangle. Better seed spacing would have also helped. I got a bit over 40 tomatoes and 10 or so tomatillos and ground cherries out of 2 and 1/2 rolls, so it is space efficient.

Overall, I am happy with this as a starting method.

I am not intending to put any of the tomatoes into the GAMCOD plot so I did pot them out into plastic and peat pots. I just don't have enough* of the metal/clay pots to do them all so am saving what I have for stuff that will go into that plot.

*we're watching a local auction that has tons of terracotta pots, but I'm not going to get my hopes up yet.

It's not much to look at, but using a very old pair of 100% cotton jeans (which I will never fit in again, and the fabric has become too fragile to repair), and a catering-size chopped tomato tin that's been in my garden for a couple of years:

I've made my first 'seed-snail', to try to start courgettes (which hate root disturbance).

I did get a ton of Terra cotta pots on the cheap so I'll be potting out a bunch if stuff this week.

A lifetimes supply for under $50!

I decided to wait on potting stuff out due to lack of inside space and it being too cold to start hardening off.

Things are due to be warmer after tonight so I got to work.
The wire basket with fabric lining seemed to work okay, but I don't have the time to keep up it's water needs. Also, I think I didn't break the leaves down enough in it's soil mix so they are struggling.
At least it is warm enough now that I could dig some dirt up and was able to pot out the seedlings from it.
They are pretty sad looking, but I hope most will make it.

You should check out organic freak on YouTube. She has videos going back 6 and 9 years using this method. Her video how to germinate any seeds, this method saves space posted 9 years ago. I don't know if she is the original  person but she was using this method long before it became popular on Instagram.

Thanks Dee (welcome to permies!) I found organic freaks video :



for seed starting.

Interestingly she doesn't use any soil in this video, just a paper towel with a plastic foam as the layer separator. I may try something similar for my HPS* seeds this year. I only get a very few in the seed share, so each one is precious and it will be nice to be able to unroll and inspect without digging up compost...easy to put the container in the bottom of the fridge for those that need stratification too.

In this follow up video of seedlings she has got some seed compost in the tubes:



But it could also be interesting to germinate without and then transplant once the seeds are sprouting.


(*HPS Hardy Plant Society)

This is WILD!  Looks easier than waiting for seeds to sprout in containers.
Thank you for finding and posting it!