How To Prepare Seeds For Your Organic Vegetable Garden
Now that you are ready with your organic potting mixture, its time to start preparing seeds. As we have already discussed, the organic potting mixture needs at least 15 to 20 days time to get ready before you can actually fill them in your pots.
So this time gap can be used to prepare seeds of vegetables. I would usually use seeds that I have collected myself from previous season crops. This is possible only if you are using traditional variety seeds.
If you use hybrid varieties you would not be able to get quality seeds and you need to buy them again.
You can get seeds from SIM organics along with terrace garden kit or separately too. You need to ping here
Organic Vegetables Seed Preparation
Prior to planting, you need to prepare your seeds so that they germinate well and this also helps in reducing the time required for the plant to grow.
There are different kinds of seeds which need to be treated differently. Some vary in size, some in their germination percentage and many are dormant seeds that need to be broken out of dormancy.
- If treating seeds with acids, handle with care as they can be caustic to the skin and eyes.
- Seeds
- Paper towels
- Water
- File or paring knife
- Acid
- Peat moss
- Plastic tub
- Freezer bags
Simple Seed Germination
This is for seeds that grow easily, you can follow this type of germination for wheat grass, green leafy vegetables, carrots, beets, tomatoes, chillies and so on.
- Sprinkle small seeds on a paper towel or filter paper and thoroughly soak the seeds and surrounding material with water. You just need to keep the paper wet.
- Wet a second piece of paper and place it over the first, covering the seeds.
- Leave the seeds soaking for up to 12 hours, check every hour to see when they begin to swell. Keep adding water to keep the surface of the paper wet. You will be able to see outgrowths on the seeds after which you can plant them in the planned fashion.
Paper Cup Seed Germination
Instead of spreading over a paper you could use paper cups for germination of seeds. Using paper cups to germinate seeds works best for pots.
You can remove the lower part of the paper cup and plant directly into the pot.
You also have the advantage of growing for a longer period, say more than a week in the paper cup.
Hard-Shelled Seeds – Removing The Hard Surface
Some seeds such as coriander and lotus have hard casings and need to be made softer to let water to penetrate through the layer of the seeds to germinate it.
How to Remove Hard Surface
1. By Scratching – coriander seeds
2. Treating with sulfuric acid
3. Treating with Gibberellic Acid
Once you are ready to plant the seedlings you need to take care about a lot of other things, will get to that in tomorrows post.
Menaka Bharathi is a Mindful Parenting Consultant and an Organic food Producer. She markets Indian Superfoods throug SIM Organics which taken in small quantities would help to maintain the health of the family and boost resistance against diseases.
