squash germination woes

[Ian_5]

having a bit of bother getting some squash seeds to germinate; growing a few varieties (sweet dumpling, crown prince, red kuri amongst others) and so far (>2 weeks) only the sweet dumpling have been successful, the others have been 1 plant from 10 or so seeds.

Not doing anything different to previous years; in a propagator by a sunny window and normally have more plants than i know what to do with!! I've also tried in pots above a radiator both with and without soaking the seed in water over night... anything else i could try?

thanks

[zazen999]

Waiting til it's warm? Honestly, the weather recently - might have been warmish in the day but at night - brrrr...

I pop mine into my heated prop and they are usually up within 2-3 days.

Have you tried chitting in damp shredded paper/vermiculite/compost in a sandwich bag? and popping into a warm place like an airing cupboard?

[SlugLobber]

All my squash family seeds have been very slow, this year. I'm growing cukes and courgettes as usual and actually had a little dig with the courgettes to see what was going on! Most of the cukes have come up, now, but most of the courgettes are still hiding. Weather has been too temperamental (they are in a greenhouse, but it is a bit cold, really!).

[solway cropper]

Haven't sown any squash yet as it's still too cold up here in my opinion. If things stay as they have been today I'll try some in the next few days. Even if they germinate in the propagator you've got to bring them out at some point and they'll just sulk if it's not warm enough.

[Urban]

I planted 2 in each pot of all my cucumbers & squash to make sure I got enough, 100% have germinated
And they all look healthy, I'm sposed to get rid of the weaker one but am loathed to do that, but I'm not sure I could get one out of pot without damaging the other, dilemma

[di]

I only planted my squash seeds yesterday. I prefer to wait til now as I don't have the room, time nor inclination to bother with hardening them off.
I agree, it's probably just still a little too cold for them,resist the urge to overwater them. Keep them moist but don't allow the soil to get so wet that they rot and hopefully soon, you'll have some green shoots popping through.

[zazen999]

I planted 2 in each pot of all my cucumbers & squash to make sure I got enough, 100% have germinated
And they all look healthy, I'm sposed to get rid of the weaker one but am loathed to do that, but I'm not sure I could get one out of pot without damaging the other, dilemma

I sow about 5 into each pot and once they are up, tip them out and transplant into a pot each. Cucurbit seeds are quite expensive so why kill some just because someone once said to?

Tip them both out, and pot on into pots of their own.

[Florence Fennel]

I love seeing the squash pop their heads up from that little bump in the soil. I went into the bedroom yesterday to water the chillies on the windowsill, looked at the squashes and said "Ooh, hello" as they had appeared after only 3 days. I hope you have better luck with yours Ian, could it be a bad batch of seed?

[rpt]

I had some pepper, squash and courgette seeds on the kitchen windowsill in an unheated propagator. Nothing happened for a couple of weeks. I then moved them into the airing cupboard and they began to appear after a couple of days. I've now got several healthy looking courgette and squash plants on the windowsill. The peppers are still looking very small (although I gather that's normal). Only one pepper pot is still in the airing cupboard, now joined by 4 tomato pots sowed yesterday. So I've learnt that a bit of warmth and patience is what's needed for these curcurbits.

[Alison]

Only sowed my courgettes and squashes on Saturday so no signs yet. Find they do better without extra heat at this time of year but they do have a plastic cover over them on the kitchen and utility room window ledges. I find that 1 seed per 3" pot works well using multi purpose compost for the big seeds (never buy into this throwing one away lark) but will pot on to 5" pots before they go out as they are hungry plants.

[Ian_5]

Thanks for all the responses, highly envious of all those with too many plants I have to say!

I'm trying chitting them on a damp wedge of kitchen roll in a plastic bag - guessing this will do the job if they're ok??

thinking it's temperature that's the problem; last april was considerably warmer than this time around but even the ones i've kept on top of kitchen units are struggling.

ordered some new seed incase it turns out that they're duff... sods law that the variety i really wanted to grow (crown prince) have had no returns at all! are they as temperamental once germinated??

[Two_Sheds]

No, once they've germinated, you just try holding them back: they'll take over any space you give them.

Do try the chitting, it's a simple reliable method for checking viability

[Ian_5]

ok, so thanks to the sage like advice from those above, i tried chitting out and had a bit of success - am i ok to let the root get a couple of cm long before transferring to compost?

i've not used this method before so any advice appreciated..

thanks

[Two_Sheds]

No, you're just checking that the seed is viable. As soon as you know that it is, pot it up

[Ian_5]

thanks two sheds. another job on the list for tomorrow then!