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Via EnjoyGardening)
Posted by admin to Current Articles on 2008-02-08, 07:16:25
First published January 21, 2008
If December gets to be known as Christmas month, then February should have its own special designation, too. Therefore, I’m unofficially declaring it seed month! I think it’s a reasonable request, too, because to my way of thinking, February is inextricably linked to germinating seeds. Most of that has to do with the fact that I spent many a day watching my parents delight in germinating seeds on the heat radiator in our sunny living room while the yard was still packed with snow.
Dad and Mom had no choice but to start many of their seeds themselves because, unlike today, there were no greenhouse specialists who supplied seedlings. You either started them yourself or were out of luck.
Nowadays, there’s a much greater range of seedlings available in the marketplace, but that still doesn’t mean that you’ll find all of your favourites available as transplants. Since quite a number of plants don’t ‘hold’ well in greenhouse packs or pots, growers simply don’t sell them as plants—only as seeds. That means if you want to grow some of the most outstanding plant varieties available, you too will need to adopt February as your seed month.
Now, if the idea of planting seeds is a little too pedestrian for your tastes, I have to say, you don’t know what you’re missing. Seeds are some of nature’s most intriguing structures, and you really owe it to yourself to try at least one foray into the world of germination.
For example, from the strange-but-true file, did you know there are boy seeds and girl seeds? Well then, look no farther than the good old cucumber. If you open up a package of cucumber seed, you might be surprised to find the odd blue seed mixed in with the regular beige ones. Well, the blue seeds are dyed that colour to show that they are androdioecious (capable of producing individual plants that are almost exclusively male flowered and unable to yield fruit). The unaltered seeds are gynodioecious (almost exclusively female flowered, individual plants that will produce fruit).
Why have gendered seed, you ask? Well, much like our human species, cucumbers don’t need a lot of male flowers kicking around to get the pollination job done. One or two male plants can provide plenty of pollen to fertilize a lot of female flowers. The end result is that fruit yields are much higher in gardens where the ratio of female to male flowers is large. In other words, females don’t need a lot of males—they just need a few good ones…I’m talking about plants, of course. So, if you’ve ever had a spectacular row of cucumbers plants covered in yellow blossoms but been disappointed by a scrawny harvest, it’s likely that a lot of those blooms were male flowers.
Starting indoors
So now that I’ve shamelessly used sex to titillate you into trying seeds, here are some tips for starting them indoors.
Always start with the highest quality seedling mixture you can buy. Poor-quality seed often gets the blame when seedlings fail to emerge, but 9 times out of 10, poor-quality soil is to blame.
Also, there’s no point in going to the trouble of buying clean seedling mixture and then subjecting it to a dirty work area. Success with seedlings requires that everything that comes in contact with them is disease free. That means clean soil, clean trays, clean tools and clean water.
Seedling soil should be watered fairly heavily prior to sowing but never after. The irresistible temptation is to soak seed flats, but over watering will drown seeds or wash them to the sides of the flats. Gentle, consistent misting will do the trick.
Seedlings also need warm soil for successful germination, so always place seedling flats on a heated surface, and keep the soil temperatures between 22 and 24˚C. However, once seedlings begin to emerge, move the flats to a bright, cool (16˚C) spot. Don’t hesitate for even a day. Failing to move the seedlings to a cooler zone is where most people go wrong. Bright and cool environments yield stocky, tough plants; warm environments with poor light will yield stretched, weak seedlings that won’t adapt well to the outdoors.
So if you don’t have “Start seeds in February at home” written on your 2008 resolutions list, add it. I think that once you try it, you’ll be hooked and, lets face it, resolving to explore the sex lives of seeds is infinitely better than that tired old weight loss/get fit resolution.
