Seed Starting

 

Zinnia seeds, some as old as six years.  

It's difficult to start seeds here by just dropping them in the ground.  The humidity and moisture levels in the soil are too low and most seeds won't germinate.  This year I had a batch of seeds from perennial native and quasi native wildflowers I started in pots:  Penstemons of various kinds, several varieties of Yarrow, Coneflower, Calendula, and Cleome.  Plus some annuals such as Cosmos.  

This was a few weeks ago.  Some of these are very slow germinators.  So far, I see some of the Yarrow and Cosmos poking their heads up.

One of my Spring tasks is to go through my seeds and sort out the ones that are either inappropriate for this growing environment (things that need a lot of moisture) or too old.  I have a super hard time throwing away seeds even when I know that their germination rate is pretty low.  Yet I hate to put in the work and devote resources preparing pots and soil for things that aren't likely to grow.  So I'm doing a germination test.  I've layered some of these old seeds (in this case Zinnias) in moist paper towels in an open-topped plastic container and watching to see which ones show signs of sprouting. Then I'll pick these out and stick them in pots. 

 It has only been two days and some of the seeds show signs of life.  Today, I'll stick them in the pots I've prepared.

My germination testing set up