I use tweezers to pluck them off. Pick them up by the seed end.

If they are far enough apart I just cut the paper towel with scissors and plant the piece of paper with it.

Can they be handled by hand?

Further how to plant the soil? I mean do we just put it on the soil and cover it or there has to be some part of the sprouts showing above the soil line? I am not sure what to do.

Sure you can handle them by hand if your fingers are still nimble!

Mine aren't nimble anymore and I break the root off often.

Different planting depths on different seeds. It depends on what kind of seed you are talking about?

Most seeds (sprouts) need to be covered with soil. I usually just lay the sprout on top of some potting soil then cover lightly with more soil. Roughly twice the depth as the diameter of the per-sprouted seed.

I recommend pre watering the bed.

I fully agree with wertach ... scissors, tweezers

PS: you don't need/have to separate/pull the seeds out of the paper.
I am test -germinating and just transplanted some from paper to pots. Of course, I had too many sprouts that I didn't want to grow and I picked the easiest ones. Now they are under light.

This post was edited by seysonn on Tue, Nov 19, 13 at 5:36

I use the paper towel method for all my squash, melon, pumpkin and gourd seeds. Too many years I planted them directly in the garden and waited for something to appear! After a month, I would dig down and sadly see that bugs had bored into the unsprouted seed and ate the insides.

They are easy to handle with my hands because they are all substantial in size. For those type of vegetables, the sprout gets planted downward under the soil. I plant them when the sprout is 1/2 inch long or so. The seed husk is planted upwards and I leave a tiny bit of it showing at ground level. The leaves will unfurl from under the seed husk.

I've never tried this method with tiny seeds!