6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed

So, my moonflowers finally sprouted. I planted 6 that i knicked and soaked for 26 hours and i seperately planted 6 more directly into the peat pots. Interestingly enough i noticed no difference in the time it took for them to sprout. however, the ones i soaked have smaller leaves than the other ones.

I learned some thing today. As a child I remember my father used to soak the seed over night before planting in the field. He soaked Corn and okra seeds, Cotton seed, Fava bean seed (for several days because it is very hard), the green hay seed but he did not soak the wheat seed. I never asked why I just accepted as the rule.

Hi Geof!

That is really odd.... I have never heard of it, but with those results, how coudl it not be?... that makes me nervous with all the seed trading I do, one bad seed could wipe out a lot of hard work : (

On a brighter note, your tubers are getting sent to you today!! A whole box fun!

Keriann~

Thanks Keriann, new dahlia tubers will more than make up for some dead alyssum!

I'll try some cinnamon on the surviving Alyssum and see if it helps stave of the spread.

leggy shoots - means the lights are too far away or just not enough light. they are looking for more light

Yes - unfortunately I realized this too late. I had the seeds tucked away and didn't realize that they had sprouted until too late. I'll do some transplanting and bury them (mostly tomatoes), hopefully not all is lost.

Because you started them indoors you will need to harden them off before you set them outside (do a search on this forum for hardening off, there are a lot of great threads).

Radishs do not like to be transplanted and you should direct sow them. I would pitch the ones growing now and start new when the threat of frost has past. Same with the beans.

You will need shop light to keep the happy inside, just light from a window is not enough. There are lots of other threads on seedling set-ups, all include lights.

I hope that helps

Keriann~

I can help you on the tomatoe. Just take a screwdriver and gently push the roots further down until the leaves are just above the soil. Then set them under lights for a min of 12 hours a day.

I can't help you with the Aerogarden. I have no idea how they work but it certainly looks complicated. However, I've grown an awful lot of peas and those cells look very small unless you are going to transplant them extremely quickly. Also the pea seed needs to be covered about an inch deep.

Are all the seeds peas? It's not quite clear from your post. You actually need a lot of pea plants to make a worthwhile crop. I sow an entire packet of approx 200 seeds per row and do about three rows over a season. That is for 4 people.

Hi, Thanks for the reply. I got 4 pea plants in there and we are not a big pea family. I seem to be the only one who eats them LOL. The other seeds if I can remember are purple cherokee tomatoes, Kellogs tomatoes, Rainbow cherry tomatoes, California wonder pepper, Grand belle pepper, Lemon cukes Zinnias, gallardias, Pink butterfly bush, Maximillion sunflowers , Bellflower, balloon flower,cone flower, wild bergamot, jacko o' lantern pumpkins, and Sugar daddy peas which I only planted 4 of. I plan to transplant them soon after they grow a few inches. The 6 pod aerogarden has 3 marigolds and 3 butterfly weed seeds and they as well as the others are an experiment to see how well this thing can grow seedlings. I got 6 aerogardens total but only 2 have seeds in them. 3 are packed away and the other one has tea herbs growing in it. Today I plan to get some seedling pots and get some peas in them just in case this dont work to well. I also have at least another hundred packets of seeds to grow. I think what I did wrong was I should of drilled a bit deeper in the pods to cover the peas. Will do that later after I let the dogs out.

oh yeah... I thought it was days, not weeks...

I would get them really close under lights and when they have their first set of true leaves I would pot them up deep, to their leaves. This should help and should be fine in the long run.

What kind of light set-up do you have?

Keriann~

My lighting is 1 four foot shop light with 2 cool white bulbs hanging 3" above seedlings. Thanks

The 30s don't really fit well in the 36 holder.
I'll ask again since I may have buried this question-- any downside to just filling up a tray with the pellets basically all touching each other?

It seems the pellets don't work so well for some people-- my experience with them has really been just fine. Can I ask if you used hot water as per the instructions for the initial blow-out? How do you go about placing the seeds in the pellets?

I started having tiny sprouts out of the pellets yesterday. I don't see that it would matter having them in the tray touching. Once mine got wet, they didn't fit in their individual section in the tray anyway. They are sitting on top and touching each other. I think it is more of an issue once roots start growing. i used warm water from a pur filter. I just pulled back the covering, ripped it a little at the top and used a pencil to fluff it up like it said.

I grow my seedlings in my workshop/studio area which is heated separately from my living area. I keep it at 55 when I am not out there. I find that simply draping the lighted shelves with reflective material is enough to hold the heat from the fluorescent bulbs and bring the temp up to 70-80F (top shelf warmer). I can use the top shelf for germination and the bottom one for growing seedings that like it a bit cooler. No need for heating mats. Also most vegetable seeds will germinate at 60 degrees and less - it just takes longer and the germination rate is a bit lower.

I planted lettuce 3 days ago and it started coming up last night so I set up my light system today. I also planted peppers last night and am eagerly awaiting those.

Here's my light setup. It is from a link in one of the posts on here. If anyone else has used this pvc setup, it says each shelf can hold 4 flats but I only have room for 2 unless I use a shelf underneath, did I put it together wrong? Anyway, I like it because for now, I can just leave it on the table and I'll have room for 4 trays and can always expand upward later as I do more or once I start transplanting to bigger containers.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Here is info on blueberrys. WOW 365 days to germinate.

365 days? Good gawd no, not true at all. About three weeks to a month at 75 degrees in pure pine bark. Yes, they are slow growers, but geeze, not that dang slow! Pine tree bark is very high in ph, and it's what this berry plant really loves. Plant them 1/4" deep in VERY FINE chopped pure pine tree bark. Spray the pine bark with rain water and a drop of superthrive mixed in a quart bottle in part sun. Do not let the bark go dry, keep it moist. In about a month you will see sprouts emerge out of the pine bark. Always plant these berry shrubs in a high acidic soil/medium of 4.0-4.8ph. This very high acidic soil is very important to the berry producing plants, and they will not survive without it.

If you have more seed I would recommend starting new ones, especially if the seedlings are over two weeks old. I had the same thing happen to me two years ago. (educated myself after the fact) The seedlings that I started under the lights were much stronger and healthier by planting time, even though they were three weeks younger.

Last year we started some tomato seedlings near a window in a plastic tray and they ended up getting a bit leggy since the light wasn't strong enough. I was worried about them but planted more than half of my garden with them. They took an extra week or two to catch up to the other plants but once they did, they actually produced better than others.

I wouldn't trust my entire garden to leggy plants, but if some are they should catch up.

I almost didn't use them but my father (Why has many years of garden experience) said they would be fine, and they were.