Starting from Seed: What You Need and How Do You Do It

Starting from Seed: What You Need and How Do You Do It

 

Has anyone tried soaking the seeds in hydrogen peroxide? I did some last year, and they sprouted. But that's not a very good Proof of Concept.
I took some very old, cheap seeds from the Dollar Store, and soaked them this year. I guess we'll see if it helps.

 

What you need? Some soil. Potting soil is good, but not necessary. Seeds prefer lighter soil, to heavier, clay-like soil. Something to put it in. Literally, ANYTHING, so long as it won't hold water (don't want the roots to drown). I have used old paper coffee cups, from McDonalds and Burger King, with a hole poked in the bottom (with a screwdriver, no less). You can even use old egg cartons, or TP cardboard rolls, with one end folded over to turn it into a pot. LIGHT. WATER.

And most importantly? PATIENCE

 

To me the stocks look like pole beans .

Now Ms , Im just telling story's of what the girls do and grow .
I build the poles for them one is 7 foot tall and after it is up it's 6 to 6.5 tall tripod of 3 poles , 2 bean sprouts per pole / leg , the other is shorter due to shorter girls .
different beans in different gardens .

Harvest wood and dry in stacks , burn bones to make bone meal .
here the girls use an Airtight wood stove with bird, rabbit ,deer etc, bones.
No Sloth bones yet , But I've come close
S

 

you harvest those as the bean pods are 6-7 " long all growing season , then dry and shuck ( my job) when dry , then dry more as been turns colour .
4,11 needs 6.5foot legs , your reach is 6 foot and they hang down.
I'm not allowed to pick or weed anything !!
S

 

Beans are funny. Sometimes treated, so they won't germinate. Sometimes not. I wanted to grow some anasazi beans last year, but the ones I had were either treated, or just too darn old....so I spent a few bucks, and got some from a seller, on Amazon. Those grew great!
The beauty of beans, though, is that once you get some that grow, you can save the dried beans, and grow more.

 

My grandparents grew their garden every year with seeds and beans saved from the previous year ,, beans , taters , tomatoes, corn, etc . Grandma would lay them out on paper towels to dry ,, and wrap in a wet paper towel to germinate the following year .

 

There may be something to the peroxide soak. I took cherry tomato seeds from the same pack. Soaked some in peroxide for about an hour, and some others with no soak. The soaked ones are sprouting, and so far none of the others have. Did some early start tomatoes too. Same thing.
However, I tried cucumber seeds also. No bueno. Which to me is unusual, usually cucumber seeds will sprout using the paper towel method, planted directly in the ground or potting soil starter mix. I've found some that had sprouted before, that I had dropped when I was planting the others in the garden. Maybe the seeds are bad. Or maybe it's Mother Nature.

 

@Alanaana
Hope it works for you. I need to try it on new seeds. Originally I was hoping it worked reviving old seeds I had.

 

Last year, because I rent (and don't want to go digging up the yard), I ended up growing everything in containers. Likely doing the same thing this year, as my lease is thru November.
I ended up with ~1/2 pound of anasazi beans harvested. Not too bad, for only about 8-10 plants, and a relatively short growing season here, in western NY. I can't plant beans until mid-May, and by early October, it's getting cold enough that they're pretty much done for the year.
I've taken 5 random beans, from what I harvested, and am going to do the paper towel trick, with some grow lights and a heat mat, to see how my germination rate is, on the beans I grew. If it's looking good, I'm likely to offer some up, for whomever might want to try them out. I'm estimating I got over 200 beans, so sending out packages of 20 would give me about 10 packets to give away.

More on that, after I see how the germination experiment goes!

 

I also have bean seeds to share, my problem is sending across border , I have a very good bunch of friends in WA state that I can receive and when I'm down , I send from Arlington WA .
Sloth

 

When I did the paper towel thing. I would take the paper towel/seed pack, wet it , and put it on top of my water heater on a coffee can plastic lid. Its always warm and dark there. So no need for a heat mat. When it didn't work, it was because I didn't check it every day and it would dry out.
I wonder if putting a container on top of it would help retain the moisture? Something to think about if some of you might want to try one covered and one not for a side by side test.