In a previous post, Seed Dormancy – Explained, I discussed different types of seed dormancy and briefly discussed various seed pre-treatments. In this post I’ll provide you with a series of steps that you can follow to germinate just about any seed.
Days to maturity, or days to harvest, is a number that can be found on most annual flower and vegetable seed packets. What does days to maturity mean? How can you use the number to grow more food and flowers in your garden?
Days to maturity is a very useful tool for selecting the right variety of seed and gardeners, especially in colder climates, should understand the term. This is even more important if you grow a vegetable garden.
In a previous post, Seed Dormancy – Are Seeds Really Dormant?, I discussed Seed Dormancy and presented a new way for gardeners to look at seed development and seed dormancy. Today I would like continue the discussion by looking at double dormancy and ask the question, does it really exist?
If you plant some peony or trillium seed in the fall you won’t see any green growth until the second spring – if you’re lucky. This is routinely described as an example of double dormancy – the seed needs two cold periods before they germinate. The two stratification (cold) periods overcome two dormancies, hence the name, double dormancy.
But is this really true? Do seeds like peony and trillium have have double dormancy? Does any seed have a double dormancy?
In my last post, Plant Seeds – Getting Started, I explained what a seed is and discussed different types of seed such as heirloom, open pollinated and hybrid. Today I’ll discuss the storing of seed and give you some suggests for getting a wide variety of seed. We’ll also look at the germination process – what is germination and what happens during germination.
Fall is coming to a close and I have been collecting plant seeds from the garden for several months. In a few cases I want the seed so that I can grow more plants, but most of the plant seed I collect will be donated to a couple organizations that operate seed exchanges. Other people around the world are doing exactly the same thing. In December, members of these organizations are allowed to order these seeds. That is where my fun starts.
I will have access to thousands of different types of seed. Anything from perennials and grasses to shrubs and trees. The groups I belong to don’t distribute vegetable seed or house plant seed, but I am sure organizations also exist for these kind of seeds.
Over the next month or two I plan to write a number of posts to tell you everything there is to know about growing plants from seed. Well, almost everything. After 40 years I am still learning.
Baptisia australis (fasle indigo) is known to be difficult to grow seedlings. Several sources report that plants die during the transplanting and subsequent maturation process. Today’s post reports on my success rate for maturing these seedlings.
In a previous post I reported on a research project to determine the Best Way to Germinate Baptisia australis Seeds.
