- 6 hours ago
A simple pre-planting seed soak can reveal which seeds are likely to sprout and help many emerge sooner. This gardening tip revisits a family tradition: soaking peas overnight before sowing, then comparing them with seeds planted dry.
The story explores why seeds sometimes fail to germinate and how a small, inexpensive household item may help you check seed viability before planting. A practical watch for home gardeners looking for faster seed germination, better seed-starting results, and straightforward ways to avoid empty garden rows.
The story explores why seeds sometimes fail to germinate and how a small, inexpensive household item may help you check seed viability before planting. A practical watch for home gardeners looking for faster seed germination, better seed-starting results, and straightforward ways to avoid empty garden rows.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00You put the seed in, and nothing came up.
00:03You watered it the way you were told.
00:05You kept it warm.
00:07You went out and looked at that bare patch of soil every morning for two weeks,
00:12and then three,
00:13and somewhere in the third week you stopped looking,
00:17because you had worked out that nothing was coming.
00:20And the worst of it is, you do not know why.
00:24You do not know whether the seed was dead in the packet,
00:27or whether it rotted in the ground,
00:30or whether you did something wrong,
00:32because a seed that fails does not tell you anything.
00:36It simply is not there.
00:39There is a way to find out before you plant,
00:41and it will also make most of those seeds come up in two days instead of two weeks.
00:47It costs about three dollars,
00:49it wants thirty minutes of your time,
00:52and the bottle is very likely in your bathroom cupboard right now.
00:56I am Elias Yoder.
00:59I farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
01:02We save a good deal of our own seed,
01:05and we sow a great deal more.
01:07And a row that does not come up in April
01:10is a hole in what we eat in September.
01:13I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:18The book is the long version.
01:21If you want it, it is there.
01:23I will not mention it again.
01:25My grandmother taught me the old half of this
01:28with a cup on a windowsill.
01:30She soaked her peas overnight before she planted them.
01:34Always.
01:35A cup of water on the sill by the kitchen window,
01:39the peas in it,
01:40put there after supper and sown the next morning.
01:43I asked her once why she bothered,
01:46since they would get wet in the ground anyway.
01:48She said her mother did it,
01:50and her mother's mother did it,
01:52and that was the whole of her answer.
01:55And I was not satisfied with it,
01:57and I went and planted a row of them dry to see.
02:01Hers were up a good four days before mine,
02:04and a great many more of hers came up at all.
02:08She never knew the reason.
02:10She only knew it worked.
02:12It took me a long while to learn what she was actually doing.
02:16A seed is not asleep.
02:18It is waiting for rain,
02:20and you are telling it the rain has come.
02:24Now let me explain that properly,
02:26because everything else follows from it.
02:28A seed is not a dead thing you wake up.
02:32It is a live thing,
02:34shut down and held that way on purpose,
02:37with locks on it.
02:39Think about what a seed has to survive.
02:42It drops in the autumn.
02:44It lies out all winter.
02:46It may freeze and thaw a dozen times.
02:50It may go through a bird.
02:52It has to get through all of that without sprouting,
02:55because a seed that sprouts in November
02:58is a seed that dies in December.
03:01So it has a hard coat on the outside,
03:04and on some seeds that coat is very nearly waterproof,
03:08and inside it has its own chemistry holding it back,
03:13telling it to wait.
03:14Now what rain does is more than wet it.
03:18Rain softens that coat over time.
03:21Rain washes away what is sitting on the surface of the seed,
03:25the molds and the chemistry both,
03:28and rain carries a very small amount of a thing formed up in the air as it falls,
03:34which is the same stuff in that brown bottle in your cupboard, only weaker.
03:39So when you soak a seed in a weak solution of it,
03:43you are not doing anything strange to that seed.
03:46You are doing what a hard rain does,
03:49on purpose, in a cup, in half an hour.
03:53Three things happen while it sits there.
03:56The coat softens,
03:57so water gets in far faster than it would in cold spring ground.
04:03Whatever is living on the outside of that seed is killed off.
04:07Mold, and the things that cause a seedling to come up
04:11and then keel over at the soil line,
04:13which is one of the commonest reasons a sowing fails
04:17and one that nobody ever explains.
04:20And the seed itself takes the signal
04:22and starts its own machinery going earlier than it otherwise would.
04:27Then it breaks down into water and air
04:30and leaves nothing behind in your soil.
04:33And there is a fourth thing worth naming,
04:36which is what my grandmother was really after without knowing it.
04:39Cold spring ground is a slow place for a seed.
04:44The soil is heavy and wet and cold,
04:48and a seed lying in it for two weeks, half awake,
04:51is a seed that something else can get to first.
04:55Mold, insects, mice, a crow that saw you sow it.
05:01Every day you take off that weight
05:02is a day the seed is not lying there defenseless.
05:06That is the real game,
05:08and the speed is only how you measure it.
05:11Now the method, and it is simple,
05:13and the numbers matter.
05:15You want the ordinary 3% bottle from the pharmacy,
05:19the plain brown one.
05:21Nothing stronger, and I will come back to that.
05:24Mix one part of it with two parts of clean water.
05:27That gives you roughly 1%,
05:30and that is the strength you want for nearly everything.
05:33Put your seeds in a cup or a small bowl
05:36and pour enough over them to cover them properly.
05:39Now the timing, by seed.
05:42For most garden seed,
05:44and that is tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash,
05:48beans, peas, and the like,
05:5130 minutes and no longer.
05:53For very fine seed,
05:55lettuce and basil and carrot,
05:5715 to 20 minutes.
05:59Those coats are thin,
06:01and they will take it faster.
06:02For the hard cases,
06:04and you know which they are
06:06because they are the ones that never come up,
06:08up to 2 hours.
06:11Nasturtium,
06:11morning glory,
06:13sweet pea,
06:14beet,
06:15parsnip.
06:16Those have coats like a nutshell.
06:18When the time is up,
06:20tip them into a sieve
06:21and rinse them properly
06:23under clean running water.
06:24Do not skip that.
06:26You are stopping the treatment,
06:28and a seed left sitting in it
06:30goes on being worked at
06:31longer than you wanted.
06:33Then lay them out on a damp cloth
06:35or a piece of kitchen paper,
06:37fold it over them,
06:39put the whole lot in a dish or a bag
06:41so it does not dry out,
06:43and set it somewhere warm,
06:45not hot.
06:46The top of a cupboard in a warm kitchen,
06:49around 70 degrees,
06:51is about right.
06:52Keep it dark or near enough.
06:54A drawer,
06:55a cupboard,
06:56a box.
06:57Light is not what starts most seed.
07:00Warmth and damp are,
07:02and a handful of kinds actually want dark
07:05to get going.
07:06And do not let that cloth dry.
07:09Check it daily,
07:10and damp it again if it wants it.
07:12Damp,
07:14not wet,
07:15and never sitting in water,
07:17because a seed sitting in standing water
07:19drowns for want of air
07:21just as surely as a dry one
07:24dies for want of water.
07:26Then look at them every day.
07:28Seed that would have taken you
07:30a week or two in cold ground
07:32will very often show a little white root tip
07:35in a day or two.
07:36Not all of it,
07:37and not every kind,
07:39but a great deal of it.
07:41And this is the part
07:42I actually want you to take away,
07:44more than the speed.
07:46You are now looking at your seed
07:48before you commit any ground to it.
07:51If 40 of your 50 seeds show a root,
07:54you have good seed and you know it.
07:57If 4 of 50 show a root,
07:59that packet is nearly finished
08:01and you have found that out
08:03on a saucer in your kitchen
08:04rather than in three weeks
08:06of staring at bare dirt in May
08:09with the season gone
08:10and nothing to put in that row.
08:13That is worth more than the two days.
08:16A gardener who knows
08:17what his seed is worth in March
08:19is a gardener who does not lose a row in May.
08:23And it tells you something about yourself as well,
08:26which is worth having.
08:28If your seed sprouts beautifully on a saucer
08:31and then fails in the ground,
08:33the seed was never your problem.
08:36Your soil was too cold or too wet
08:39or you sowed too deep or something ate it.
08:42That is a different job
08:44and at least now you know which job it is.
08:48Now, before I go on,
08:50a word on what this is called
08:52and where it came from,
08:53since some of you will want to look into it further.
08:56The trade calls this priming
08:58and it is not a new thing
09:00nor a folk thing.
09:02It has been studied properly for a long while
09:05and it is used on a great scale
09:07in places where a farmer cannot afford
09:10to sow a field twice
09:11if the first sowing fails.
09:14A seed that comes up the first time
09:16saves water,
09:17saves seed,
09:19and saves a season.
09:21So this is not a garden trick
09:23that happens to work.
09:24It is ordinary agricultural practice
09:27that most gardeners
09:28have simply never been told about,
09:30done with a $3 bottle
09:33instead of a works.
09:34Now, when the root tip shows,
09:37plant it.
09:38Straight away.
09:39That day.
09:40And this is where people undo all of it.
09:43A sprouted seed is a fragile thing.
09:46That white root is not a root yet.
09:49It is the beginning of one
09:51and it breaks off in your fingers
09:53if you are rough with it.
09:55And once it is off,
09:56the seed is finished.
09:58Handle them gently.
10:00Tip them off the paper
10:01rather than picking each one.
10:03And if a root has grown into the paper,
10:06tear the paper
10:07and plant paper and all.
10:09And do not let them dry out
10:11for a minute
10:12between the towel and the soil.
10:14A seed that has started
10:16and then dries is dead
10:18and it was alive
10:19five minutes earlier.
10:21Plant them at the depth
10:22the packet tells you.
10:24Root tip down
10:25if you can see
10:26which way it is pointing.
10:28And water them in gently.
10:30And if the weather turns against you
10:32between the saucer and the ground,
10:34and it will,
10:35plant them into pots indoors
10:38rather than holding them on the towel.
10:41A sprouted seed
10:42will not wait for you.
10:44Once it has started,
10:45it means to go on.
10:47And every day it spends on that paper
10:49is a day it is growing
10:51into something
10:52it cannot be transplanted out of.
10:55And if nothing has moved
10:57in four or five days,
10:59do not throw them out that minute.
11:01Some kinds are simply slow,
11:04and parsley and parsnip and celery
11:06will take their time
11:08no matter what you do to them.
11:10Give those a fortnight
11:12before you judge them.
11:13Now the old seed,
11:15which is the best use
11:17of this whole business.
11:19Go and look in whatever drawer
11:21or tin you keep your seed in.
11:24Most of us have packets in there
11:26from three or four years ago,
11:28half used,
11:29with the corner folded over.
11:31Old seed is where this treatment
11:34does the most good.
11:35It will not bring back seed
11:37that is genuinely dead,
11:39and I want to be plain about that.
11:41But seed that has gone weak
11:43with age and damp,
11:45the sort that would give you
11:46one plant in five,
11:48very often comes back
11:50a good deal better than that.
11:52So, before you throw
11:54an old packet out,
11:56put twenty of them
11:57on a saucer.
11:58You will know in two days
12:00whether there is anything
12:01left in them,
12:02and you will very likely
12:04find there is.
12:06And while you are in that drawer,
12:08know roughly what you are
12:10dealing with, because seed
12:12does not all keep
12:13the same length of time.
12:15Onion, leek, parsnip,
12:17and parsley are short-lived
12:19and are often finished
12:21in a year or two.
12:22Corn, peppers, and carrots
12:25will give you three or four years.
12:28Beans, peas, squash, cucumber,
12:31and the cabbage family
12:33will go four or five.
12:35Tomato and lettuce
12:37will surprise you
12:38and keep a good long while.
12:40So, a four-year-old packet
12:42of parsnip is very likely gone,
12:45and a four-year-old packet
12:47of tomato very likely is not,
12:50and the saucer
12:51will tell you which.
12:53Now, the plain limits,
12:55because I am not going
12:56to oversell this.
12:57This does not make
12:59a dead seed live.
13:01Nothing does.
13:02Plain water does a good deal
13:04of what I have described.
13:06Soaking alone,
13:07the way my grandmother did it,
13:10gets you most of the way,
13:11and if you have no bottle
13:13in the house,
13:14soak them in water overnight,
13:16and you have done well.
13:18The peroxide adds
13:20the cleaning of the surface
13:21and a little more speed on top.
13:23It is also not the answer
13:26to every failed sowing.
13:28A seed that went in too deep
13:30or into ground too cold
13:32for that crop
13:34or that dried out
13:35after it started
13:36or that a bird took
13:38was never going to come up
13:40whatever you soaked it in.
13:42This deals with one cause
13:44out of several,
13:45and the saucer test
13:46is how you find out
13:48whether yours was the seed at all.
13:51And it is not a fertilizer,
13:53and it does nothing
13:54for the plant afterwards.
13:56It is a thing you do once
13:58before the seed ever touches soil,
14:01and it will not help a thing
14:03that does not want soaking at all.
14:06There are a few kinds
14:08that resent it,
14:09and the ones I would leave alone
14:10are the very tiny,
14:12dust-fine seeds
14:14that you scatter on the surface,
14:16because you will never get them
14:18off a wet towel
14:19in one piece.
14:21Sow those the ordinary way.
14:24One more use for the same saucer,
14:26and it costs you nothing extra
14:28since you are already doing it.
14:31If you buy a large packet
14:33of something dear,
14:34or somebody gives you seed,
14:36and you do not know its age,
14:39test twenty before you commit the bed.
14:42Twenty seeds is nothing out of a packet,
14:44and two days is nothing out of a spring,
14:47and you will plant that row
14:49knowing rather than hoping.
14:51I do it every February
14:53with everything that matters,
14:54and it takes an evening,
14:56and it has saved me
14:57a great deal more
14:58than it has cost.
15:00Now the cautions,
15:02and there are four.
15:04Never stronger than the three percent bottle.
15:07There are stronger grades
15:08sold for other work,
15:10and they will burn the embryo
15:11out of a seed
15:12and leave you with nothing at all.
15:14Three percent,
15:16cut with two parts water,
15:18and no further.
15:19Do not leave them soaking
15:21longer than I have said.
15:23Longer is not better here.
15:25Past a point,
15:26you stop helping the seed
15:28and start damaging it.
15:30Keep the bottle away from children,
15:32and keep it off your own skin
15:35and out of your eyes,
15:36the same as you would
15:37with anything else in that cupboard,
15:39and wash your hands after.
15:42Mix it fresh each time
15:44and pour away
15:45what you do not use.
15:47It does not keep
15:48once it is watered down,
15:50and a jar of it sitting
15:51on a shelf for a fortnight
15:53is plain water
15:54by the time you want it.
15:56That is also why
15:57the bottle it comes in
15:58is brown,
15:59because light finishes it off.
16:02And do not do this
16:04to seed you are putting away
16:06for storage.
16:07This is a thing you do
16:09the morning you mean to plant.
16:11A treated seed
16:12wants to go in the ground,
16:14not back in a tin.
16:16There is no scheme
16:18in any of this,
16:19and nobody arranged anything.
16:21The money simply
16:22runs the other way.
16:24There is seed sold
16:25already treated,
16:26and it costs more
16:28than untreated seed,
16:29and the people selling it
16:31are doing a real thing to it
16:32rather than nothing at all.
16:34It is only that
16:36nobody makes a living
16:37telling you the same result
16:39comes out of a $3 bottle
16:40and a cup on your counter,
16:42so nobody says it,
16:44and a thing nobody
16:45has a reason to say
16:46gets forgotten
16:48inside of one generation.
16:50What got lost
16:51was not a product.
16:53It was a woman
16:54putting a cup of peas
16:55on a windowsill
16:56after supper
16:57because her mother did,
16:59without ever knowing
17:00why it worked.
17:02One more small thing
17:04that costs nothing
17:05and saves a good deal
17:07of bother.
17:08Write on the towel
17:09or on the dish
17:10what is in there
17:12and the date
17:12you started it.
17:14Two saucers
17:15of small brown seed
17:16on a warm shelf
17:17look exactly alike
17:19after three days,
17:20and I have mixed
17:21them up myself
17:22and had to plant
17:24the whole lot together
17:25and wait to see
17:26what came.
17:27So here is what
17:29I would have you do
17:30this week,
17:30and it costs
17:31almost nothing.
17:33Go and find
17:34your oldest packet
17:35of seed,
17:36the one you have been
17:38meaning to throw out,
17:39the one you do not trust.
17:41Count out twenty.
17:43Soak them the way
17:44I have said,
17:45rinse them,
17:47lay them on a damp cloth
17:48and put them
17:49somewhere warm.
17:50In two days
17:52you will know
17:53exactly what you have got
17:54and either way
17:56you are ahead.
17:57If they come up,
17:59you have a packet
18:00you thought was rubbish.
18:01If they do not,
18:03you have found out now
18:04rather than in May
18:06and you can buy fresh
18:07while there is still
18:08time to sow it.
18:10So tell me in the comments
18:11how old that packet was
18:13and how many of the twenty
18:15came up
18:16because I would like
18:17to see the spread
18:18and I have a notion
18:19some of you are going
18:20to surprise yourselves.
18:22And if you are new here,
18:24tell me what you grow most of
18:26so I know who I am talking to.
18:29Next time,
18:30I want to go to the other end
18:31of this entirely
18:32because the best seed
18:34you will ever plant
18:35is not the seed you buy.
18:37It is the seed you saved yourself
18:39out of your own best plant
18:42and there is a right way
18:43to take it
18:44and a right way to keep it
18:45and some crops
18:47will come true from it
18:48and some will not.
18:49A seed is not asleep.
18:52It is waiting for rain
18:54and you are telling it
18:55the rain has come.
18:57The people who built this country
18:59with their hands knew that
19:01and we are only just starting
19:03to remember it.