soaking seeds

[4390evans]

What do you think does soaking seeds matter?
Does it make them germinate quicker?
I've soaked some of my cerinthe's last night just to try this out, they usually take about two to three weeks before I see anything.

Do any of you do it?

[scarey55]

The only things I soak are peas to chit them because the mice don't like them once they have chitted and parsnips to make sure that they are viable but I don't soak anything else.

[bramble]

Like Scary said, i only soak peas and sweet pea seeds. i soak them for 24 hours and them plant them.

[rustylady]

Peas, beans and sweetcorn.

[Bren In Pots]

Like the others I only soak beans and peas.

[RaptorUK]

I soaked my Asparagus seeds for a couple of hours before sowing . . . almost 4 weeks later still no show

[WendyC]

Ipomea and mina lobata soaking in the kitchen today ready to plant tomorrow. I experimented with soaking sweetpea seeds last year and found I had a better germination rate when I didn't soak, although took maybe one or two days longer to come through.

[Kristen]

I soak pea / sweet peas, but nothing else that is a vegetable.

For ornamentals I soak lots of things - things that have hard coats / large seeds - often in hot water, replaced numerous times. There is a theory that the heat causes any air inside the seed to expand, bubble out, and then as the seed cools it draws in the water instead.

Not relevant to any vegetables that I know of though!

[Kristen]

sweetcorn.

That's not one that I soak as the Supersweet etc. varieties seem to be very prone to rotting (many that I have bought have come coated with a fungicide to try to combat that problem), so I keep mine "only moist" during germination, being careful not to give any excess water

No idea if that is important or not though

[Thelma Sanders]

I don't soak my sweetcorn but I do chit it on damp paper

[Chippy Minton]

I don't soak anything, I live in the North-West, I put stuff outside and nature soaks it for me

[Alison]

Don't soak anything, never found it necessary.


Sent from my iPad using Grow Your Own Forum

[4390evans]

Peas, beans and sweetcorn.

How long do you soak your sweet corn rustylady? Do you get good crops Im thinking of trying to grow some this year, do they take much looking after?

[cheops]

I never soak any seeds. Have planted sweet peas without soaking and they were up within the week. I also planted lupin seeds without soaking and they were up within days. Each to their own thinking and ideas but personally I don't think it is necessary and wouldn't occur in nature.

[Kristen]

Two schools of thought as with many things in gardening

For me soaking, on the seeds I do it on, and also applying bottom-heat in a propagator (neither nature's way ) are about increasing the percentage germination, reducing the germination time, but primarily getting the germination timing to be more consistent - it helps me to have them all come up at once, and be the same size for pricking out etc.

For some seeds Nature has built in random germination timings so that they come up at different times - e.g. in case the weather is foul when some germinate.

For Sweet Peas I don't think it makes much, if any, difference. I soak them just on the off chance that I get a packet of stale seeds in the hope that it might help.

I am a "maximum faff" type of grower though