Taken from Eclectic Gardener @ http://www.teachinggarden.org/

Written by Alan Hickman

For once I seem to have got the first seeds sown and under lights at the proper time. Most packages of annual plant seed recommend planting indoors under lights 6 - 8 weeks before last frost, so in southern Ontario the second and third weeks of March see the big burst of indoor planting activity. Some seeds, though, need planting sooner and some later and the package instructions don’t always quite work out.

As an example, the silver-leaved ‘Dusty Miller’ Senecio cineraria is an early bird, with a suggested starting date of 8 - 10 weeks before last frost. Last year it was seeded on 21st of March but by early June the seedlings were still not really big enough to plant in the garden. This year they were seeded on the 20th of February so they should be well ready by planting-out time.

The showy red dwarf salvia ‘St John’s Fire’ is another plant which, for me at least, comes on quite slowly and last year, with a late March seeding date, they were a straggly looking bunch at planting-out time. This year, seeded a month sooner, we hope for better things.

Despite the exceptions, most popular seeds are pretty easy to grow - that’s why they’re popular - but being easy doesn’t detract from the satisfaction of growing your own plants. There is something very agreeable about watching a nice even flat of dwarf marigolds set bud and start coming into bloom, under lights in the basement, just as the weather outside gets to be warm and inviting.

Like most things garden-related, experience helps when it comes to growing your own plants, and one of the biggest contributors to ‘experience’ is keeping half-decent records. If you can’t remember how you screwed up last year, you’ll likely screw up the same way again this year.

With most everyone now having access to a computer, record keeping is less of a chore than it once was. The minimum data to keep is the date sown, the date of first germination and the date the plants were ready for planting out. As an example, last year, 24 seeds of the tomato ‘Crimson Carmello’ were planted on the 12th March and the first seed germinated the 21st March. By 21ST April, 21 seeds had germinated (87.5%) and on the 24th April the seedlings were transplanted into 3" pots. A month later, 29th May, they were planted in the garden as nice bushy plants.

Thanks to last year’s notes, the pepper seeds will be planted before February is out. Typically the seeds take about ten days to germinate, but last year they were still germinating twenty-four days later and there’s a terse comment ‘Start earlier’!

Years ago, a packet of seeds would usually have more seed than a normal home gardener could possibly use and there were always half used packets waiting for next year. Today prices have gone up, the quantities have gone down and a single package may be nowhere near enough for even a small garden.

When commercial growers buy a quantity of seed they get a seed count and they also get a germination rate. For instance: purchasers might be told that 100 gm of watermelon seed averages 1000 seeds and that the germination rate tested at a minimum of 80%, so the grower knows to expect about 800 plants for every 100 gm of seed.

Home gardeners will mostly look in vain for such disclosure. Some companies like Thompson & Morgan and Johnsons may give a seed count; others show a weight but no seed count. Among all the packets that I’ve accumulated over the past few years, only one - for Tomatoberry seeds, from Johnny’s Select Seeds - has given both a seed quantity and a germination rate.

Record keeping can, at least to some extent, mitigate the omission of information on the part of packagers of seed for domestic growers. Like seeds tend to have like weights so, over time, it is possible to build up a reference list of seed numbers to package weights for those species of plants which you have grown before.

Germination rates are more tricky, because they can vary from year to year, but there are some generalizations to be made. Tomato seeds tend to be very viable with germination rates of 100% being quite common. For me, marigolds generally give good returns with 80%, give or take a few, being the norm. Cineraria has very small seed and, last I tried, only about half of it germinated.

Part of the reason that seed quantity and germination rates are not shown on retail packages is that the seed supplier has no control over the growing conditions that the seed finds itself in. Soil temperature, moisture level, amount of light, planting medium and planting depth all have an influence on how a particular seed will perform.

If they are to survive as businesses, commercial growers have to have everything exactly as it needs to be and they can usually get the published results. Home growers seldom are able to control all the variables and sometimes otherwise viable seed germinates poorly or it doesn’t come up at all. From the suppliers’ point of view, it is far less hassle if they don’t create expectations.



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