These are tiny seedlings planted in flats back in February. They were started under grow lights.
I use a really fine organic seed starting mix and simply scatter the seeds over the top of the flat and pat them
into the soil. The seed starting mix is soaked with water before any planting is done so it is wet before I apply the seeds. Seeds that might blow away get a light covering of soil sprinkled on top. Flats are covered with saran warp and placed under the grow lights for several days, until I see seeds starting to sprout. The covering keeps the moisture in and prevents me from having to water too much & disturb the seeds. Wrap comes off once seeds are up.
Same flat of seeds 2 weeks later. It is now time to transplant the seedlings into their individual pots. These plants will be for sale and so are transplanted into 3" pots. Transplanting seedlings that are this tightly packed is a delicate job, but if you are patience you should have no problem. Obviously, the average gardener is not going to plant like this and I posted this here for illustration only. To transplant, I use a sharp knife and carefully cut tiny sections of the soil apart, keeping the seedlings and their roots intact. This is kind of like planting rolls of sod. I put the entire block of soil in the pot, tamp down the dirt and water. There will be 3-4 plants in each pot.
This is the end result, after transplanting. These were trimmed back to 1-2 plants per pot, choosing the largest and/or healthiest ones to remain.
To allow the plants to become nice and fully, I will "pinch" the tops out of them, just above the leaf node and they will start to spread out from there.
