Getting seeds to germinate

[Asrais]

My garden consists manily of native (australian) plants at the moment - when creating in, my first agenda was to attract wildlife to the garden and create a base of plants that can basically take care of themselves - so far, so good with that.

My next project is the veggie patch and herb garden - I have dedicated an area of the garden that can be fenced off from the cats and dog and that is sheltered from winds and recieves lots of sun. I have built raised beds and brought in new soil - my soil is heavy clay, not good for veggies. All the veggies will be grown in here, plus some fruit trees and herbs for culinary use - anything we need to keep the animals off.

Other herbs will be planted around the garden, where conditions suit them best and where they will be most appreciated (scent, insect repellants etc)

So, being on a budget, I decided to try and grow all my plants from seeds - after all $100 worth of seed could fill a garden. Still a little cold here, so my first lot of seeds have been planted in trays indoors, the first of which went in 11 days ago, but there is still no sign of germination from all but one lot. In the first tray there is cucumbers, peanuts, water melon, miracle fruit, native passionfruit, native lemons and aubergiene (eggplant). Now I know some of these take a little longer (lemon) to germinate, but I would have expected to see signs of life from the cucumbers at least by now. How do I know if they have failed? How long to I leave them?

At least, I didn't sow all the seeds at once, so if I have failed this time, I can try again

On a side note, is there any garden blessings I could do? When we moved into this house, I did a cleansing ceremony but I never did anything in the garden.

[lorraine02]

Re: Getting seeds to germinate

yes, I think so .

[Caelia]

Re: Getting seeds to germinate

Different plants have different germination times. You may not be seeing sprouts for that reason. It could also be you planted too deep. Move some of the soil and check. There are a few other reasons but I'm not sure how to remedy it and I'll let those who have a green thumb handle them.

As for blessings: yep, there are some you can do. You can even make up your own.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Getting seeds to germinate

You should be seeing signs of the cucumber by now, for sure.

See if you can dig up a cuke seed from your tray. If it has turned to mush inside, the most likely problem is that the seeds were too cool, didn't sprout, and rotted.

If the seed is still intact (seems firm and not mushy), try moving your trays to a warmer location. I had pumpkin seeds I was trying to sprout for three weeks. Nothing came up. I figured that they had all rotted, so I dumped them on the compost pile, in the sun... and the seeds sprouted the next day...

To find out how long it takes the seeds to sprout, put a couple of fresh seeds on a damp piece of paper towel, and put that in a plastic bag. Check the seeds every day - you'll see when they sprout.

This will also tell you if you got bad seeds - old or poorly stored seeds that may not sprout at all.

[sway]

Re: Getting seeds to germinate

i recommend planting seeds based on the moon. for ex, do not sew seeds during Full moon to new moon etc. (IIRC). and there are further details on first quarter, and last quarter for planting etc. i sewed my seeds without paying attention to this, and i had horrible return on investment. when i did it according to the moon cycles, i had better success.
i get all this info from farmers almanac book or site. hope this helps too!

[Ula]

Re: Getting seeds to germinate

Are the seeds getting sun or a sun lamp?

[thalassa]

Re: Getting seeds to germinate

Part of the problem might be that you are growing them in a tray together, which means they are all getting the same conditions, and their individual needs might not be met for germination. I would recommend looking up each of the seeds you want to grow, and checking their preferred temp for germination, soil wetness, amount of light, preferred depth, that sort of thing.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Getting seeds to germinate

One of my daughters used to put her hands over the seed trays and whisper 'Grow.' And it worked. No idea why really, just that she could grow things really easily.