6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Check out the Seed Saving forum here for storage and use guidelines. It is linked on the front page of this forum and provides detailed FAQs on your question.
As Al said air tight, steady temp, no light exposure, avoid exposure to heat and humidity, etc. works best. But fridge storage is convenient for many and poses no problems for the seeds. Most, not all, seeds are usable for many, many years when properly stored.
Dave
Hi Yippee,
"...so long as seeds are kept in the proper environment, can they be used a year or two later or do seeds have a certain shelf-life, even when kept in optimum settings?"
Seeds do have a "shelf life". The longevity of seeds in ideal storage varies greatly with the variety of the seed. As you can see from that table, some seeds are lucky to last for a year, while others are good for many years. My hobby is growing zinnias, and fortunately their seeds are fairly long lasting. I store my zinnia seeds in Ziploc bags on a shelf in my basement. I hope to improve on that in the future. While a refrigerator might not be necessary, it would be insurance against the seeds getting too hot in a room environment. And it would keep the seeds away from exposure to harmful levels of light. When my budget allows, I think I will get a small refrigerator for seed storage.
I also recommend you read the article Giving Seeds What They Need In Storage that is also linked on the Hill Gardens of Maine website. I think the tip about keeping stored seeds away from exposure to light is something that many people overlook.
ZM
Some "tricks" that work for me - use a sterile germination mix (I use Burpee's mixes, but there are many other good ones); use plastic cell packs (I use deep six packs that I purchase in bulk from a greenhouse supply site - a case lasts me a long time); wet the medium thoroughly before planting (I fill the cells dry and use boiling water to wet them, the leave them overnight to cool and for the moisture to be thoroughly distributed and absorbed); cover the seeds with bird gravel or fine chicken grit (I read this tip once to prevent damp off, and over the years it has proven true for me); water each planted cell with a small, gentle shower of water to settle the grit; cover with a humidity dome - propped slightly open to prevent excess moisture build-up and allow air circulation; resist watering again until well after you see germination unless the medium becomes very dry (unlikely if it was thoroughly wetted before planting); remove humidity cover and put directly under lights once there is germination. Water seedlings only as needed (when I think they need water, I check the weight of the six pack to confirm that they need water; it's a test that I find useful to avoid overwatering). I do not feed seedlings until they are planted out. I also have a fan circulating air and blowing on the seedling. Don't skimp on your light setup (I mean amount of light, not necessarily $ - there are frugal set-ups that work just fine). Make sure it is big enough and adjustable - you'll be much happier with your results if you can give the seedlings sufficient indoor light.
Of course, YMMV.
No lawn specialist (you might ask over on that forum here) but it sounds to me like you need to be watering less frequently but for a longer period of time. Well-watered it shouldn't be drying out that quickly.
Depending on the temps and the exposure I'd water 2x a day - early morning and again mid-afternoon - for a good hour or more and do that until it showed good germination. Then cut it to 1x a day. That's what the lawn guy recommended to us when we re-seeded part of ours that was a full sun plot and 80 degree days.
Either way if it is drying out then I don't think you need to worry about over-watering it.
Dave
Congratulations on your sproutlings!! May they live long, bloom-heavy lives and grow to be colorful additions to your flowerbeds. It's easy to get impatient when you provide the best growing medium & optimal growing conditions but it's best to stand back once that's done and let the seeds do what they do best...sprout when the time is right. Tomorrow I'm going to be planting ornamental dogwood trees I grew from seed via winter sowing--they're nearly 3 ft. tall and well branched so it's time to get them in the ground and let them do their thing. It'll be bittersweet in some ways--I'll be planting them beside the stumps of mature dogwoods that snapped off 12 ft. from the ground back in the October snowstorm and had to be cut down.
actually as long as it isn't a deluge, a day or two of rain will be just the thing. It will give the ground a nice deep yet 'soft' watering which is a perfect start.
I planted my carrots and beets a few days ago, knowing we had a couple days of rain ahead.
But yes overly hard or extended rain is not good.
The one on the left, along with 4 others that look just like it, were under 2 - 4' long cool fluorescent tubes. The one on the right, along with 4 others that look just like it were under 2 - 4' long fluorescent tubes, but one was a cool light tube and the other was a warm light (aquarium/plant type light bulb.) So I believe the reason the one on the left is so scrawny is because it was only under the cool lights. I now have it under the same lights as the one on the right and hoping it catches up quickly. :)
Hi Kim ( heirloomjunkie )
Good things come to those who wait ;-)
I took some pics of my garden this morning (90 actually) but I won't boor you with them all,but here is a few ,notice the Chard (Swiss and Rainbow) and of course (just to rub it in) an up date on my Spinach ;-)
Oh, Jon! These pictures made my night! Are you able to grow such stuff now because you're in a maritime climate? I'm so envious!
The reason I came to the thread, though, is that I've never ever had a successful crop of spinach. Obviously I am doing things terribly wrong! I'm in Missouri and have planted from March to May over the years.
A few sprouts at most. My soil is organically cared for, fed well, mulched. Something I'm doing is DEATH to spinach! Any ideas?
Thanks for the lovely walk through my future summer greens. :D
I'm not sure but it looks like that one may be wahlenbergia cuspidata Blue Cloud -
You may have the seeds a little warmer than ideal at 75ish, and going by whats helpful with the others, if its been more than a month, I'd put the sown seeds (moist) into the refrigerator for 2-4 weeks (wrap the tray/pot in saran). Bring them back out and if you have someplace about 10F cooler than the 75F they are in now to leave them for a while, do that.
Here, I'd put the pots outdoors now but I understand you aren't having the same cool weather (50 and raining at noon). If its difficult for you to control the temperature and not have them too warm, if you have more seed why don't you sow again in late Fall, leave the pots outdoors. Surface sow these, don't cover the seed.
Thanks for the helpful info, morz. When the seeds self-sowed, it was in summer and temps were in mid 70s, so I tried to give the seeds those same temps. I'll try to stratify them, as well as a few other methods you suggested. I have lots of seeds, so it couldn't hurt to try a few different methods at the same time to see what else works.
If no seedlings germinate, it could very well be they're no longer viable. They're about 6 years old and from what I understand, the longer seeds are kept, the less viable they become.
Rene - you can plant Brassicas deeper when they go out into the garden. It will support them and they are able to root from the stem. Here's a discussion from a while back.
Here is a link that might be useful: Planting Brassicas
The pepper plants around here usually come from big brands even nurseries around the area aren't real nurseries. So there's nothing special about the pepper plants, just run out of the mill bell peppers. If I wanted those I'd just go to the supermarket. I'll maybe use a seed or two to try and save the rest for nxt year
I know there are a lot of guidelines and rules out there but rules are meant to be broken.
Last year I started pepper plants indoors but when it came to planting in Mid May I noticed I had a few extra containers in the shed. So in I popped some pepper seed. I was able to grow black peppers as well as Jalapeno peppers before the season was out. Yes the ones I started indoors produced much better. The ones directly planted took a long time to grow and only started to produce much later in the season but never the less they had peppers.
If you have the extra space then give it a try. If you're limited for space then I wouldn't suggest this route becasue you'll produce more with transplants.
Ok great :)
Had 2 other questions pop into my mind. Just to get to the smaller details.
1. Say we have 15 seeds in a cell. 2 of 15 pop on the first day. Are we leaving the bag sealed, for say a week? To see who else comes up. Or do we open at the start and the rest will follow?
2. Concerning the fertilizer. What type of delivery system do you recommend? Spray bottle - or drip in to not get it on the seedlings. Not sure if the seedlings can handle foliage type feedings.
And thanks a lot for the input. I sowed 20 Porodia Haselbergii about a hour ago on the GM. I got about 1000 seeds from mine this year, so using them for experiments to weed out some potential future problems.
Thanks again
Doug
Ugh I wish you could edit previous posts.
"But you have to be comfortable with doing lots of transplanting to individual cells within a short time as they can't all remain in the 1 cell for any length of time. How soon will vary from variety to variety."
The criteria for when to transplant, will be about the point that they come near to touching each other and/or overcrowding correct?
Doug
Sorry but I guess I am not being clear. The media used to start seeds, to germinate them and grow them to transplant size, is very different from the media used to grow plants. One does not use growing media to start seeds.
So are you talking about starting seeds and seedlings which is the focus of this forum or are you talking about growing plants? There are no approved recipes for starting seeds. It is an important difference.
Dave
Thank you for your post, morz8. I appreciate your explanation of the stratification process. Most of the websites I visited were extremely vague, and did not explain that the seeds had to be moist for the conditioning to be of any use.
Regardless, perhaps I need to be more patient, or perhaps I should try to find a live plant for this year and go from there.
For those seeds that do need the moist cold period, you can either sow your pots or flats, cover or wrap in saran or slip into a plastic bag, put them into your refrigerator (dated of course). If space is an issue, you can put the seeds with as little as a teaspoon or two of moist sterile sand or moist sterile vermiculite into a tiny zip lock (again, dated) and put that into your refrigerator. When the recommended time is up with the small zip lock bag, you can then sow the entire contents of the bag, vermiculite and all and not have to extract the seeds - helpful with the smaller types seed.
There are a handful of plants where seed is best sown before being stored any number of months, I've acquired fresh seed from purchasing a plant a few times now. Monkshood, ladies mantel are two that come to mind :)
What has happened is the stress of taking them in and out - the radical changes in environment. Once hardening off begins, they need to stay in that environment. Otherwise they aren't being hardened off. That means you shouldn't start the process unless the weather forecast allows it to continue until they can go into the garden.
Less experienced gardeners who try to rush planting out will hotly debate this - see recent discussions - but the validity of it is well established.
In your case nights of 40-50's are no problem for them outside. The severe storm? Perhaps but rather than bring them end you just move them to a more sheltered environment for the duration of the storm. Back inside and under lights is too radical a change.
Clearly there are exceptions, depending on the crop. A sudden snow fall or hard freeze for example. In which case bring them in but try to duplicate the outside environment as much as possible - cool basement with no lights, for example rather than the living room with lights.
What many fail to understand about the process of hardening off is that full bright sun tolerance is not the primary goal. Adjusting them to air temp and avoiding high wind exposure is. Dappled sun, what many call part shade, as long as they are protected from harsh winds and air temps below 40's is great hardening off conditions for most vegetable plants.
If you will move most of your tomato plants to such an environment they will recover assuming they are not rootbound in their containers. You may lose some of the worst leaves but the new growth will be fine.
Hope this helps.
Dave
I can't think of a selective herbicide that I would trust for seedlings. There may be a couple on the market you might feel confident using around established mature plants but I would hesitate even then.
A preemergent wouldn't have helped you, it would have prohibited germination of your flower seeds too and not just the crab grass. I think your best choice is going to be to pull the grass seedlings, and when your plants have reached a better size, mulch between and around them to cover any more existing weed seeds.
It's called weeding, we all do it :) But don't despair, this first year of reclaiming a weedy area that had been let go will be the worst, if you keep up with the weeding (let none go long enough they produce and disperse seed) -you'll find you have less and less as seasons pass.