Tulips from the Master Gardener (aka Dad) are popping up in the yard. I'm pretty sure the squirrels found all of them planted in one area, but I keep finding more poking out of the earth. I also have crocuses budding and more tulips in a pot from the boyfriend's mom. They're getting me amped for some gorgeous blooms this summer.
Over the years I have acquired a bunch of flower seed packets. And when I say over the years, I mean I have packets from 2006. I did a little research on the life expectancy of seeds (aka viability) and found that some are only good for a year, some up to five years, so I decided to do a germination test.
I tossed some of the packets because they had so few seeds, or weren't something I really wanted to plant. I decided to test cosmos (2007), hollyhock (2010), nasturtium (2010), blanket flower (2006), bachelor's buttons (2006), columbine (2006), zinnia (2010), and daisy (2007).
I wet a paper towel, placed 10 seeds inside, rolled it up with a marker indicating what kind of seed it was, and placed is in a plastic bag on top of my refrigerator.
This year I'm keeping track of all of my planting, germination, blooming, and harvest dates in a notebook. I set up a page for the germination test before I checked it for the first time after two days on the fridge.
If you enlarge that photo, you can see that my hollyhock seeds germinated after only two days!! I was impressed. I used all of the seeds that were left in the seed packet (12), and five of them germinated. I rolled them back up with the rest to see if any more would germinate. I checked again Monday morning, and I still had only five hollyhock sprouts, but I had six nasturtiums and seven zinnias that had all sprouted. Pretty good numbers considering I only had six nasturtium seeds to test, and two more zinnias looked like they were about to sprout and the last seed pod looked empty.
I have been keeping pretty much anything that will hold liquid and or soil for the last month or so to start seeds in. I planted all of the spouted seeds, including the two zinnias that were thinking about it, in an 18-count egg carton.
It's still getting cool at night, and we might get some lowland snow this weekend, so they'll have to live under my grow light for a few weeks. I hope they know how to share, because some romaine sprouts are doing their thing in peat pellets under the light, too.
I plan on waiting for another week on my germination test to see if any other seeds decide to sprout. I was a little disappointed that was all that came up, but then last night I was gifted by a very generous friend some sweet pea and snapdragon seeds she collected from her flowers last summer. Between those and some poppy and maybe other seeds collected by the Master Gardener, I should be set. Hopefully this summer the bees will be loving my flowers and doing their duty to pollinate my veggies.
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