Seeds – This is where it starts

Let’s celebrate together! I have published 53 posts and have 54 followers, most of whom I don’t know. I have added one post every Thursday morning. I’m so enjoying my journey of sharing and hopefully helping people learn new things and enjoy some cool topics. I am grateful for all that have read my blog and have followed it.

It will be awesome to see what the next year brings. Thank you to the friends that inspired me and cheered me on. I might give credit to my more than awesome proofreader and partner, I am blessed with encouragement when I have writer’s blah.

Some weeks I did not know what to post, I got my ideas together and then put them typed them out even when I did not feel so good. Please share with me topics that you might enjoy reading in the future. It would be nice to read what topics of mine you have already that inspired you.

Ok now that this thank you is done, on with the seemingly good ideas. As people that know me well I have a whole storyline of such ideas.

From reading my past blog topics you may know I’m a gardener. Now is the last of the season where all the seeds I have collected need to be separated from the stalks and other plant matter.

I have tiny catnip seeds that are hugged into their dried flower stalks very tightly. Up till now I close my hand loosely around the flower head and spin the stick working out the seed with the spinning motion hitting my hand.. It is a slow process. I was like I have a salad spinner that would do that on a larger scale on one stalk at a time. I stuffed all the stalks in, put the lid on and pulled the tab that spins this thing like mad.

Good thinking, till I see small black seeds shooting all over the floor.. Sigh.. The spinner has an opening on the side that is not meant to be there. SO I guess it worked but I will likely have small black seeds (smaller than a ballpoint pen head) all over. I’m sure I will still find them up till the time we do a final clean to move..

This is some of the seeds I had swept up, If you look at the green, you will see the gap

Thankful for brooms and dustpans

Have you had any seamily good ideas that kinda worked? Maybe you have some good tips on getting seed out of the pods. Looking forward to your life or gardening tip

Take care till you read again.

Planting season is filled with growth, people that grow from seeds have that new parent feeling when we watch our seeds bust from their housing and spout a little root. Did you know that you can just plant a healthy new seed and likely have something grow. There is a lot of science behind seeds and growing. Grabs my science hat…

I don’t really wear a science hat.

But I love to read about things and science is fascinating. So a seed needs a few basics to grow, moisture, climate. Some like it warm to hot and others will enjoy a cool dark place and time. Each seeds sprout time varies. I have seen seeds take less then a day to weeks to sprout.

There are seeds that enjoy a light blanket of covering and others want to be on top of the medium to grow. All seeds need to have water and carbohydrates stored in the seed, so when and how the seed is gathered in the plants seed stage is very key to whether you will have a living viable seed.

Some tests I have read about to check if your older seeds are still good are stick some in water and see if they sink or float in 15 min. If you have some floating still you can soak them 12 hours if they still float your seed is likely ready to be compost. If it sunk you likely have a productive seed. They have a good chance under their ideal conditions to sprout. If they float it is probably because they lack viable embryos or nutrient.

Anatomy of a seed Taking a bit of time to learn about the seeds you want to plant can help the best outcome. Inspect you seeds, looking for mold or physical damage. Read the packs they came in sometimes will give you some great information. how deep to plant them, when, where and tips on planting them. One thing many of my seed packs don’t have in the expected germination time or the best temperatures to try to start them at. Having older seed does not mean you have useless seeds, so test them before tossing them out. I find they often need a more controlled setting to get your older seeds to sprout. If they get stinky and slimy once moisture is added they should be tossed out. I put ones like that in the compost. You can mist your seeds with a peroxide 1 to 1 mix to help them not get mold. I put mine in a Hydrogen Peroxide mix before trying to germinate them

Because some seeds don’t have enough carbohydrates to grow, I have read that putting in water that you have sprouted beans in it holds the carbohydrates that help a seed break out of its shell. The last thing I do in testing seeds is put 10 in a slightly damp folded paper towel. I tuck mine in a zip lock bag. You can also put it in a jar with a lid and leave it in a quiet place. I write a note on tape, type of seed, time and date that I put the seed in. If they are warm seeds like cantaloupe, peppers, tomatoes, watermelons I keep at about 70 degrees fahrenheit, or 21 degrees celsius. Some need to be warmer, some greens need to be cooler. Spinach, lettuce, bok choy. When to plant your seeds You can do less seed but if you want to test how many out of that batch will grow this will help to give you a percentage.

So this year to keep my seeds at a consistent temperature I gave a try to my yogurt setting on my multi cooker. So far I had a cucumber sprout and some licorice plants. I put in 8 different food seeds and a butterfly flower mix. I did this on April 21 2021.

As I was reading about seeds one of my favorite youtube gardeners shared a cool storage idea from a blogger he enjoys, sore your seeds in plastic photo storage boxes, I will be buying one. Kevin from The Epic gardener

I hope you have a great start to planting season, please share if you have ever grown a seed. Share your tips about seeds. Happy growing.

Tag: Seeds

Happy 1 year of being a blogger and seemingly good ideas.

Is that a sprout?