What You Need To Know When Buying Seeds Of Vegetables, Flowers And When Preparing Them For Sowing

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

"Cheat sheet" for seeds

• Buying vegetable seeds
• Buying flower seeds
• How long can seeds be stored
• Approximate timing of sowing vegetable seeds
• Preparing purchased seeds for sowing
• Preparing for sowing seeds collected by yourself

Buying vegetable seeds

When choosing between varieties and hybrids (on the bags of which there is an F1 designation), it should be remembered that, unlike varieties, hybrid seeds provide:

• increased and stable yield (almost 1.5-2 times higher compared to varieties);
• more intensive development (rapid growth and rapid formation of the crop, subject to balanced and high-quality nutrition);
• disease resistance;
• resistance to adverse environmental conditions; the ability, not only to actively develop in adverse conditions, but also to tie fruits;
• amicable ripening of fruits, which is very convenient for collection and processing;
• uniformity of fruits; absence (or very small amount) of ugly fruits; bright and attractive coloration;
• high palatability of fruits (fruits are sweeter, have an elastic consistency).

Having bought the seeds of hybrids, one must not forget that hybrids do not retain their properties in the next generations. This means that you cannot get them yourself - you will have to buy hybrid seeds every year.

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Buying flower seeds

To minimize germination of flower seeds, consider the following information:

• Take a close look at the expiration date printed on the back of the bag, as, unfortunately, flower seeds are often sold past their expiration dates.
• Find out if the plant is annual, biennial, or perennial. Remember that annual flowers will bloom in the year of sowing, but they will die in winter (asters, marigolds, petunia, cornflower, scented tobacco, lobelia, etc.). Biennials will bloom only next year, but their flowering will also last only one summer (pansies, Turkish carnation, stock-rose, etc.). Most perennials will not bloom in the first summer after sowing, but then they will delight you with their beauty for a long time (Carpathian bell, perennial chamomile, yarrow, etc.).
• Be sure to study the plant height data and its light requirements. This is extremely important because If you have a shady wet area, you shouldn't even try to grow flowers on it that require a lot of sunlight.
• Find out the timing of sowing seeds (it depends on whether to grow plants through seedlings or sow directly into open ground). If the sowing date is February-March on the bag, this means that you cannot do without seedlings.

How long can seeds be stored

Usually in the fall we sort through the remains of seeds and buy new ones. And every time it's a pity to throw out last year's seeds - they will suddenly sprout. Of course, as mentioned above, you can safely check their germination and decide whether to throw out the seeds, or they will work for this season. But, alas, now they sell so few seeds in bags and they are so expensive that it is more reasonable to conduct such experiments only with seeds of our own production. Therefore, it does not hurt to know how long the seeds of different crops live, and what conditions must be created so that they do not let us down in the spring.

Vegetable seeds can be stored for so many years, keeping up to 75% germination:

• watermelon, melon, zucchini, cucumber, pumpkin - 6-8 years;
• beans, peas, beans, corn - 5-6 years;
• artichoke, rutabagus, cabbage, radish, radish, turnip, beet, tomato, asparagus - 4-5 years;
• eggplant, onion, leek, carrot, lettuce, spinach, chicory - 3-4 years;
• onions, peppers, parsley, rhubarb, dill, sorrel - 2-3 years;
• parsnips, celery - 1-2 years.

Flower seeds have their own permissible shelf life:

• delphinium, phlox, marigold, primrose, verbena, nigella, arkotis, helihrizum, nemesia, aster, pansies, dimorphoteka. escholzia, calendula, Carpathian and peach-leaved bells - 2 years;
• cornflower, pyrethrum, foxglove, middle bell, zinnia, matthiola, lobularia, kosmeya, helipterum, begonia, annual dahlia, fragrant tobacco, petunia, fiery red beans, snapdragon, purslane - 2-3 years;
• sweet peas, lupine, poppy, nasturtium, calendula, petunia, mignonette and chrysanthemum - 4 years;
• pinnate carnation, Turkish and Chinese, coreopsis - 4-5 years.

The main reason for the loss of germination is the high moisture content of the seeds, so freshly harvested seeds need to be dried in the open air or indoors. Spread them out in a thin layer on paper, newspaper, linen, which absorb moisture easily. Draft is useful, but sun drying is contraindicated. You can also dry the seeds near the stove and the battery, and at room temperature of 20 … 25 ° C, the seeds will dry out in 2-3 days. Be sure to dry old seeds too, especially if you kept them in an unheated country house (which is actually very bad and significantly reduces seed germination). Do not forget about suitable packaging - bags made of thick paper, and preferably small plastic bags.

In addition, the seeds have a porous shell and absorb moisture from the air. But there may be a reverse process: if the air is too dry during the heating season, the seeds are able to give off moisture, and, thereby, also lose germination.

There is one more factor - you need to keep the seeds at a constant temperature, which is not at all difficult in a city apartment somewhere in a closet on a shelf. And this means that you should not transport seeds to the garden house ahead of time: go to plant and bring them, and in an apartment at a more or less constant temperature and in a plastic bag they will be much better.

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Approximate timing of sowing vegetable seeds

• Tall and medium-sized tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and potatoes are usually sown from mid-February to early March.
• Low-growing tomatoes can be sown until about March 20.
• Physalis - in mid-March.
• Cucumbers, watermelons, melons, pumpkins and zucchini can be sown from the second decade of April to early May.
• Kohlrabi can be sown from mid-April to mid-May.
• Sowing of early white cabbage and early cauliflower begins from early March to late April.
• Savoy and Brussels sprouts - from early to mid-April.
• Mid-season white cabbage is sown from mid-April to mid-May
• Sowing of late white cabbage and late cauliflower begins from mid-March to late April.
• Black onion - from early March to late April.
• Carrots - from mid-April to mid-May.
• Beets - from mid-April to early May (in a greenhouse or greenhouse for seedlings) and from mid-May to the end of the first decade of June (in open ground).

Choose the exact dates of sowing seeds based on the lunar sowing calendar of the gardener and gardener.

Preparing purchased seeds for sowing

Most purchased seeds do not require any pre-treatment. If the seeds are not dusty and not inlaid, then it is enough to soak them for a day in ordinary (preferably snow) water. Or, even better, treat with growth stimulants such as Epin (7 drops per glass of water).

Inlaid (covered with a colored shell), as well as small and dusty seeds (such seeds in remontant strawberries and in many annual flower crops) do not require any processing - they are sown only dry.

However, there are two exceptions to this rule.

1. Strong peel on some seeds (lagenaria, some pumpkin varieties, some herbs, etc.) must be scarified before sowing, i.e. damage - scratch. Without this, such seeds can sprout for a very long time (a month, two or more), or they may not sprout at all. For damage, you can rub the swollen seeds a little with a sandpaper or gently cut a little with nail scissors from the side opposite to the scar. This operation is dangerous, and one must act extremely carefully so as not to destroy the internal structure of the seed.
2. Many berry, fruit, medicinal crops and a number of flowers, and horseradish and katran emerge from vegetables only after stratification - prolonged exposure of the seeds to a low positive temperature from 0 to plus 5 ° C. Such seeds must either be sown in the fall (then they will be stratified under natural conditions), or mixed with a wet substrate (sand, sawdust, peat chips, moss) and kept at a low temperature and free air access in the refrigerator. For 1 part of the seeds, take 3-4 parts of the substrate. Stratification lasts from one to several months, depending on the culture.

Preparing for sowing seeds collected by yourself

The seeds can be kept in a weak solution of biological products (for example, trichodermine) for 2 hours (cabbage and other cruciferous plants - no more than 30 minutes). You can also hold them in the Planty solution for a day and spray with Epin. Immunocytophyte will help from viral diseases, in which it is enough to soak the seeds for 3-12 hours.

Read the second part of the

"Cheat Sheet" on seeds:

Basic rules for sowing seeds