6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Great plant, s-l-o-w germinator. What's your patience quota?
I'd soak overnight, it's too late to place outdoors Fall, so depending on where you live, you could sow and either place the pot in your refrigerator for a month or two, or outdoors if you will still have 4-6 weeks of chilly weather ahead of you. Top the pot with grit or fine aquarium gravel to discourage moss/algae - a good idea for anything that's going to be around a while before germination. You could get some germination in as little as 30 days after the chill, but it could be as long as 545 days. You'll want to keep the pot intact for two years, water it occasionally so it doesn't dry out.
Patience. ;) Basil is slow to kick into gear. It's fine hairy roots need time to develop first. If you haven't fed it yet try a one time watering with a diluted to 1/4 strength liquid fertilizer.
I prefer to start it in a small seed tray and then transplant it to small cups (it will never fill a 16 oz. cups) or 6 cell cellpacks. That encourages better root development.
It seems easier (and more logical) to just sow the seeds into larger containers from the beggining to ensure adaguete space for the plant to grow.
It is easier for the gardener but not for the plant. ;) It's the staged transplanting process that stimulates root development.
Dave
Lettuce, broccoli, cabbage - no problem if you harden them off first. They can even be direct seeded and will tolerate light frosts.
Tomatoes and peppers - at 3-4 weeks they would be awfully small transplants - easy to damage. But check your soil temps first. Tomatoes need a minimum of 50 degree soil at the root level and peppers are the most tropical - they prefer 60 degree soil.
Good luck.
Dave
you could warm up your soil first for the tomatoes and peppers (plastic mulch or row covers) and/or use the plant protectors (like cloches or the Wall-o-Water), but if the soil is too cool it's really not worth it to transplant the warm season crops: you'll stress the plants and they won't produce as well during the season, even if they don't die. one month transplants could be ok, but not if you're talking about doing it right now (march 10th!) in zone 7 - too early both air and soil temperature wise.
You could always try if you have some seed to play with, but I don't find documentation to support mechanically breaching the seed coat for this particular seed - more like your best weapon is 'time' (unless having access to a flock of cooperative birds, and of course I can't tell you when/which year they may have planted the seeds for seedlings I'm finding)
This was an interesting article on holly germination:
(most text on germination mentions 'extreme dormancy')
Here is a link that might be useful: Ilex from seed
Take any seeds you have leftover and scatter them on the snow or soil now. You may be able to get a crop of seedlings sown in place.
Foxglove and poppy seedlings are both a royal PITA to divide (tangled, hairy roots), even when they're small, but they are reasonably forgiving and will recover if not too heavily damaged in the process.
Just transplant them Ginny into new, deeper containers and they will do fine. Then get them some supplemental light source (not direct sunlight) - they are leggy due to lack of sufficient light.
When you transplant them plant them so that at least 3/4 of the stem is down in the dirt or deeper if you can - you can plant them so that just the cotyledons - the seed leaves - at at the soil level. You can even coil the leggy stem a bit with care so that it is deeper.
But without sufficient light they will get leggy again. If your weather allows, give them a week to adjust to the new containers and then gradually expose them to the sun.
Dave
Thank you both for the info. I have an old block maker which I haven't used for 20 years or more, found it in my garage and thought I'd give it a try - couldn't remember the composition of the slurry. Seems it was nowhere as complicated as the one suggested, but it worked fairly well......Elder
Elliot Coleman and Michael Ladbrooke have definetly brought the message of soil blocks to America. However, most information about soil blocks have to be bought, borrowed from a book, or trial by fire. The info on the web was shallow, obscure and hard to follow. And any place you bought soil blockers from were not into helping you get started. To that end, I decided to create the most comprehensive information site on the subject of soil blocks and how to use soil blockers. I have made hundreds of thousands of soil blocks and experimented with ingredients, just for the fun of it.
The potting block guru may not be king, but will advise him soon. See http://www.pottingblocks.com and happy reading.
Here is a link that might be useful: The World's Resource for Soil Block Gardening.
You can plant these outside as soon as the ground thaws. I would just put them in dry peat moss and store them in the refriderator until then.
Plant the dafs about 4" deep. Keep the iris up near the surface so that the top surface of the root is exposed. That is their growing preference.
You can use a daffodil as a houseplant....once. It needs more sun and nutrients than can usually be supplied indoors. so it will not reflower if kept indoors after that first flowering.
Very old fixtures used a plug in starter which often went bad and overheated the lamp filaments causing the black spot in the area of the filament. I don't think these fixtures have been made in the last 40 years. The new cheap fixtures you would buy as 'shop lights' are rapid start ballast types. The cost of the ballast would probably exceed the fixture cost, plus the nuisance of installing it. Al
The cabbage should be able to go out to the garden most anytime now in your zone - if you can get it hardened off. The whitish brown leaves were due to wind and sun exposure, not temps. Try to find them a place that is blocked from wind and in the shade to harden off.
You can transplant them to larger cell packs but then you'll have to give them some time to adjust before hardening off.
The impatiens and coleus definitely need to go under the lights. Once anything has germinated it needs the lights.
Good luck.
Dave
Agree with rachel but with your shorter gardening season in Colorado I'd sure start them inside NOW - peppers are slow to germinate and slow growing at first. They need 8-10 weeks to develop into useful size seedlings for transplanting to the garden.
Dave
As rachel said, peppers like it warm to germinate(78 to 85 deg F). To get the best germination it is good to have a warming mat. If you don't have one, put them in a slightly warm place until they germinate (like on top of something appliance that gives off heat). The cooler it is the longer it takes to germinate. Once they germinate, they will need a lot of light. Good luck!