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Post by templeton on Sept 18, 2014 0:41:24 GMT -5
I'm germinating (on a heat mat)seeds to plant in pots for sale at market. I want a few seeds in each pot - herbs and stuff. Made up a cornstarch gel according to the Colarado State extension service (I think), and will probably do the pots tomorrow. Anyone have any experience with gel seed sowing? Traps for young players?
T
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Post by steev on Sept 18, 2014 1:37:38 GMT -5
Not sure what you're on about; something other than "seed-tape" of seeds in a strip of gelatine?
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Post by rowan on Sept 18, 2014 4:46:15 GMT -5
We used to do gel seeding at a tree nursery I used to work in. We used a gel made from those water holding crystals blended up, then mixed the seeds in and dropped drops of the mix into preprepared tubes with a caulk gun.
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Post by raymondo on Sept 18, 2014 5:12:30 GMT -5
I'm germinating (on a heat mat)seeds to plant in pots for sale at market. I want a few seeds in each pot - herbs and stuff. Made up a cornstarch gel according to the Colarado State extension service (I think), and will probably do the pots tomorrow. Anyone have any experience with gel seed sowing? Traps for young players? T Is there some advantage to this? |
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Post by rowan on Sept 18, 2014 14:44:12 GMT -5
It makes it a lot easier when you are seeding large amounts of tubes or punnets.
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Post by templeton on Sept 18, 2014 16:22:16 GMT -5
I'm germinating (on a heat mat)seeds to plant in pots for sale at market. I want a few seeds in each pot - herbs and stuff. Made up a cornstarch gel according to the Colarado State extension service (I think), and will probably do the pots tomorrow. Anyone have any experience with gel seed sowing? Traps for young players? T Is there some advantage to this? I find little germinating seeds of say lettuce or basil, for instance, really difficult to spread evenly in punnets or pots when they are wet. I'm pre-germinating the seed on a heat mat because I have a target date to get the plants saleable (last week's market was successful enough that I think I can do way better next month with a wider range of plants for sale). I've got just over 3 weeks to get them looking OK. By making a gel of cornstarch (corn flour in Australia - made from wheat - go figure) 1 tablespoon to one cup of boiling water, whisk, cool, add germinated seeds, stir gently, pour into plastic bag, snip off corner, squeeze gel evenly onto soil, pots, punnets etc. It sounds straight forward, but my complication gene, working in concert with my messy gene, might just lead to a seedy, sticky nightmare. I'll post the pictures if it all goes wrong:) T |
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Post by diane on Sept 20, 2014 1:09:37 GMT -5
I did it once about 35 years ago with presprouted carrot seeds when the RHS first published the technique. I can't remember any details, but did not ever repeat the process.
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Post by mountaindweller on Feb 18, 2015 18:19:26 GMT -5
Very stupid questions: you still cover the seeds with soil, since they are covered with cornflour yet? Second how do you figure out how many seeds per pot? BYW, thank you for the recipe, I only read one which goes with wall paper paste and since that is expensive here I never tried it. And how long do you leave your seeds to presprout? backyardnursery.freeforums.net/ |
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Post by steev on Feb 18, 2015 22:26:16 GMT -5
"Corn flour" is Brit-speak, as they use "corn" for "grain" (wheat), not for "maize", probably from the Saxon usage "korn", as in Einkorn; I wonder why some of us once-colonials came to equate "maize" to "corn". English is such a weird language, it's a wonder anyone can learn it.
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Post by oldmobie on Feb 18, 2015 23:45:46 GMT -5
"Corn flour" is Brit-speak, as they use "corn" for "grain" (wheat), not for "maize", probably from the Saxon usage "korn", as in Einkorn; I wonder why some of us once-colonials came to equate "maize" to "corn". English is such a weird language, it's a wonder anyone can learn it. That really threw me for a loop when I read Robinson Crusoe. He talked and talked about how thankful he was to have his corn, then finally referred to it as barley and rice. Took me a while to get that he meant corn as a generic term. |
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Post by templeton on Feb 21, 2015 7:38:22 GMT -5
Very stupid questions: you still cover the seeds with soil, since they are covered with cornflour yet? Second how do you figure out how many seeds per pot? BYW, thank you for the recipe, I only read one which goes with wall paper paste and since that is expensive here I never tried it. And how long do you leave your seeds to presprout? backyardnursery.freeforums.net/MD, igerminated the seed on a heat mat for a couple of days from memory. It took bit of trial and error to get the right density of seeds to gel, and to cut the correct size hole in the bag. Still came out a bit clumpy. Wasnt a real issue since i was doing basil and i had buckets of home collected stuff. Ultimately didnt work - weather didnt behave. I dont remember doing a soil cover, i think i just did a relatively thin layer or lumps of gel, which washe into the surface with my tiny seed watering can anyway. Sorry to be so vague  T |
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Post by mountaindweller on Apr 28, 2015 22:07:26 GMT -5
Could this gel seeding method be used to plant vegetables out of time? Maybe carrots now, which is according to gardenate two months too late. One thing is the germination temperature and the other the temperature were things actually grow. My logic says that these temperatures would be about the same, what else are germination temperatures for? Or can I tweak nature, maybe not with the carrots but maybe with the beets? In spring were temperatures go up this might be more feasible but we're having autumn now. Just thinking around.... backyardnursery.freeforums.net/ |
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Post by templeton on Apr 29, 2015 2:52:46 GMT -5
MD,
the gel seeding is really only a technique to get little seeds spread evenly, and for sowing germinated seed without smashing it up. Doesn't really confer any growth advantage. Pre-germinating does give you a head start - Carol Deppe makes reference to this technique for early spring plantings of peas, for example. She suggests that germ temps are higher than growth temps, so this is an advantage for early cropping. You have cool winters, don't you? Carrots might do ok over winter in a mild climate, but once they have done the over-winter thing, their biological clocks kick in, and they want to make babies in late spring. If winter is too cool, they just go dormant, and when they restart in spring when temps increase, you get a nasty woody layer in the root where the new growth started.
I have just re-tried the gel seeding of carrots directly into the bed here, but didn't get my gel thick enough, and the seedlings are a bit too dense. (I'm growing these for seed and breeding rather than eating, so growth checks aren't really an issue)
I'll see if i can be bothered loading a pic tomorrow.
T
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Post by mountaindweller on Apr 30, 2015 2:43:20 GMT -5
Woody carrots don't sound good, so i'll rather stick to the winter stuff. But I will try the gel seeding because my carrot patches are never even. I can imagine as well that the gel is instant nutrition as it is flour?? Could mix in some other beneficial stuff like seaweed, a bit like cooking... backyardnursery.freeforums.net/ |
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Post by templeton on Apr 30, 2015 18:11:55 GMT -5
There's not much dry matter in the teaspoon of flour - so i doubt it adds much in the way of nutrients. Adding seaweed might encourage fungal growth near the germinating seeds - just a thought. In addition, researchers have found adding sugar to soils reduces available nitrate - flour might work the same way www.csu.edu.au/herbarium/woodlandweb/online-articles/sweet-end-to-weedsT |
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