Germinating Annual Seed
by Doug
(His Garden)
Sow, cover, water, heat, light and food (that about covers it)
When sowing, space the seeds out. Do not lump them into a single area of your soil area. Leave at least one half inch between each seed. It is much better to plant several pots than crowd those seeds (and resulting seedlings) together.
Overcrowding seedlings leads to disease and weak spindly plants that are not much good in the garden. I note that with excess seeds, there is no reason why the smaller gardeners among us can not be given their own pot for seed starting. (Marigolds make the best and easiest plant for small children as they are easy, fast and fairly tolerant of over-loving)
Cover
Lightly cover does not mean deeply bury. While many garden seeds such as peas and corn can grow through one half inch of soil, if a small geranium or petunia seed is planted that deeply, the gardener might just as well put a grave marker on the seed pot rather than an identification tag.
With the exception of the seeds such as pansies that demand full darkness for germination, I cover my seeds so that they are just hidden, with no more coverage than necessary and certainly no more than the width of the seed.
Make sure the artificial soil you’re using is fine (no lumps in the seed covering soil) and just sprinkle it over the seed. Pansies and other "dark" germinators that demand darkness for germination get covered slightly deeper to restrict light levels or are covered with black plastic for 7-10 days to induce germination.
Water
Once sown, seeds like uniform moisture.
While there are a few exceptions to this, gardeners can lightly cover most seedlings to create pockets of moisture around their seeds.
All I want to do is ensure a uniform moisture level around the seed for uniform seed starting and soil surrounding the seed will reduce drying air currents.
Heat
Unlike perennials that often germinate in cool soil temperatures, annuals want a warm soil temperature to ensure germination. Soil temperatures of 72F are common in the trade for obtaining good results.
Note that soil temperatures are usually 10 degrees cooler than air temperatures. While sunny windowsills will warm up nicely during the day, they are much cooler at night.
Find a good warm place for the seeds until they germinate. Some gardeners use the top of an old, yet working frig to take advantage of the heat generated by the compressor. Check whether the top of your frig is warm because frankly, I believe this to be a non-starter given modern energy-efficient refrigerators.
I now use a small heat mat that provides an even constant temperature for my seed starting efforts. Or, I also use a 100 watt light bulb suspended in an aquarium (aquarium top is covered with clear plastic to hold in the heat)
Sunlight
Light levels during the early germination phase are not overly important but
once the seeds have begun germination, they can and should be moved to a cooler spot and given as much sunlight as possible.
This light is critical for the development of the plant and must be provided either by an unimpeded south facing window or a combination of window and grow lights.
Plants without adequate light grow tall and spindly as they stretch out in search of this light they require for energy and growth.
Food
In the home garden, I usually start feeding when the plants hit the four leaf stage (it has four leaves that look like the mature plant leaf). And I use a very dilute feed - quarter strength until transplanting when it is gradually increased to full strength over the next week or two.
And those are the basics for annual and vegetable seed germination.
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