Patience

[boonies]

I started the seeds of my larger tomato varieties on March 17, some were up in 3 days. Started the cherries on March 28th & started second sowings on the non-germinated larger toms. April 1st several of the cherry varieties were beginning to pop, got antsy & replanted a few of the non or low germinating varieties again. Tonight I replanted several of the cherry types.


Patience is a virtue, but I don't have any. How long do you hold out before resowing?


Are Snow White & Green Grape particularily slow germinators?

[Tomstrees]

I wait 2 1/2 weeks ~
Then def. a second sowing ...
Tom

[Sorellina]

Ciao boonies and thank you SO much for starting this thread so I didn't have to! I started all of my seeds on March 23 with bottom heat in peat pellets that I've always used without issue. I know I don't NEED to use bottom heat with tomatoes, but I thought it might speed things up. I use a Jiffy seedling tray with its plastic cover and remove condensation when it appears on the cover. As soon as they pop up, I remove them to a tray under lights. Of 50 or so varieties I started, 36 have at least 1/3 germinated as of today. Since it hasn't even been 2 weeks yet, I won't panic, I'll practice my patience. In the meantime, if I'm doing something that you feel is counter to good germination, please speak up.

[boonies]

I do use a seed heat mat, it definitely speeds germination up. Before the heat mat, it generally took between 5-10 days [or longer] for most tomato seeds to germinate. With the mat, some toms are up in 3 days, and I've even had eggplant seeds germinate in 5 days.



I also used to put some tom cups on a well vertilated shelf sitting on top of my old CRT computer monitor. Those monitors gave off a ton of heat. Can't do that on my LCD monitor now

[carolyn137]

Boonies,

I think you will appreciate the following little ditty that my Swedish grandmother used to tell me, many times.

Patience is a virtue
Find it if you can
You'll find it in a woman
But seldom in a man

QED.

I could care less how fast my seedlings come up as long as they come up.

They'll come up just fine at ambient room temp, faster if I put the seed pans on top of some lighted fixtures on my light stand and fastest if I take the seed pans to my farmer friend who puts them in his seed greenhouse where there are pipes with warm water inside the concrete benches.

I'l'l just note that several here know that at GW I made two large seed offers in two successive years, and of the 300 varieties offered all but about 15 were older seeds from 1991 to about 1997.

I get the feeling in this thread that waking up those older seeds, most of which were rare varieties from my former listings in the SSE Yearbook, would not be popular with some of the folks here b'c they want instant gratification re seeds germinating.

With older seeds it isn't unusual to have to wait weeks, yea up to three months I've waited, to get germination of very rare varieties.

So patience is indeed a virtue and I think that some of us who are older, man or woman, have it.

Good Gardening to you all, with your instantly germinated tomato seeds.

[travis]

Patience is a virtue
Find it if you can
You'll find it in a woman
But seldom in a man
[Carolyn, who is tinkerin' with political incorrectness here ]

Not that I care. :wink:

Besides ... all old wives' tales are based in, shall we call it for lack of a better word ... TRUTH!

Yeah, I planted some of the seeds of Lucky Cross, Little Lucky, and Earl's Faux extraction earlier in February, and when they didn't spring right up there with the more rapid germinators, I lost my ability to just lay back and wait. But eventually several sprouted ... not necessarily vigorously, but sprouted nonetheless. Some even look promising now that they've had a month or so in 16-ounce cups.

Then I planted some seeds Andrey sent from Belarus and when they didn't jump out of the ground, I again figured them for lost, but stuck them on a heat pad and tucked them inbetween some tubs of seedlings under lights out in the unheated garage. Just the other day, about two weeks after planting them, I noticed most of them have popped up finally.

Then there's the Charleston Hots (peppers) that took over a month to germinate as well as several other peppers that are slower than Moses.

Actually, thank Goodness it takes so long for some seeds to sprout as I still haven't potted up a couple of dozen seedlings in sore need of larger containers.

So ...

If there's virtue in patience
Maybe I can learn
To think like a turtle
and watch the world turn

PV

[boonies]

Originally Posted by kctomato

speaking of emerging

Patience is a virtue
Find it if you can
You'll find it in a woman
But seldom during childbirth (or a sale)

Hey!

Guess this isn't the best time to say I'm female

[michael johnson]

I have noticed -from several years observation, that seeds tend to sprout more quickly if the trays are covered in polythene or in the case of the USA sarin wrap seems to be popular- and then placed so that the heat of the sun falls on them for part of the day ( preferably morning sun ) as its not quite so hot, any water vapour and condensation under the wrap helps to speed up germination.

I find this sunlight directly on the trays seems to wake them up quickly and sprout.

Now I find this a funny thing- because lots of people I know tend to favour covering them up in the dark for best results.


I am talking of course about your average germination types, other older and more difficult seeds will of course take much longer no matter what you try.


There is something about the rays of sunlight penetrating the compost surface that seems to inspire the seed to think it naturaly spring, I dont think its just the heat from the rays- it seems to be more to do with the spectrum of light.

At one time I did toy with the idea of playing about with a full spectrum lighting lash up just above the seed trays- but then never actualy got round to it, it would be very interesting to note if in fact light of the right spectrum does indeed have any effect on seeds sown just under the surface of compost - before they come up, rather than lights on them after they have come up.

[Sorellina]

Ciao Keith,

Just to be clear, you're saying then that once you have one seed germinate, the whole seed tray goes under the lights? And you then put your heating mat under the seed tray which is under the lights? What I've been doing since I start my seeds in peat pellets is moving individual peat pellets with sprouts under the lights, leaving the remainder in their Jiffy tray with the plastic dome cover on top of the heating mat. I'm trying very hard not to find extra reasons to worry, but I am wondering at this point whether the peat pellets are getting over-heated. I take the dome off several times a day to slide the condensation off into a tray so it's not overly humid in there and I also spritz them from time to time if they start to dry out. The non-germinated peat pellets have been out of the light for 13 days now, so should I uncover the Jiffy tray and put it under the lights? Am I making more out of this than I need to?

[Sorellina]

Ok, Keith, thanks for that. I'll take a chill pill. This is the first time I've had to wait longer than a week for everything to come up, so it's just a process I need to go through. I'll check my hormone levels while I'm at it.

[Sorellina]

Ciao all,

Good news and I think somebody was definitely testing my ability to be patient here: 1/5 Happy, 1/3 Ernesto, 1/3 Little Lucky, and 1/3 Cherokee Purple have peeked their little heads out of the soil, finally. I'm hugely relieved. The slowpokes remaining are: Grub's Mystery Green (Grub 2006), Anna Russian (Bully 2003), Lucky Cross (Bully 2005), Black From Tula (Sandhill 2004), Galina's (Bully 2005), Sungold F1 (jctom 2005), Kellogg's Breakfast (Bully 2005), and Patio Orange (Tania 2005).

[boonies]

My recalcitrant seeds are waking up, snow white, black krim, and at long last green grape, are finally poking their heads up from batch #2.




Figured out where my patience went, the long drought between 1918 and 2004 sucked it dry.

[giardiniere]

Originally Posted by boonies

Figured out where my patience went, the long drought between 1918 and 2004 sucked it dry.

If you couldn't tell by those emoticons, I'm a Cardinals fan. I'm glad the Red Sox drought is over, but did it have to come at the expense of my Cards? :wink:

and oh, BTW Julianna, I'm glad you're starting to see some of the "fruits of your labor".

Ciao!!

[Sorellina]

Grazie Dave,

Yeah, I guess I had an out of character lack of patience moment. I've since calmed down quite a bit. I guess we all have those moments at one point or the other. I woke up to see 2/3 Lucky Cross inverted U's poking out of the soil. So now I'm down to 7 that haven't germinated.

[Sorellina]

Ciao all,

This post is more for my own sense of closure, but I just wanted to give an update on my issues with my sluggish varieties. I re-sowed some of these on April 6 out of impatience and a wish to have at least one plant of these varieties for this year. As of today, April 17, I have 1 Kellogg's Breakfast (#2 sowing only, 5 days) , 1 Anna Russian (#2 sowing, 4 days, 2nd one came up a day later but the inverted U broke as it came out of the soil), 4 Galina's (#1 sowing, 18 days and 22 days, #2 sowing, 3 days and 5 days), 1 Sungold F1 (#1 sowing, 20 days), 3 Black From Tula (#2 sowing, 5 days and 7 days), 3 Grub's Mystery Green (#1 sowing, 16 days and 19 days, #2 sowing, 5 days), and finally 1 Patio Orange (#2 sowing, 11 days).

I think I've closed the book on the peat pellet deal. Yes, they're convenient and early in the process, it's nice not having to deal with big bags of pro-mix (which can also be difficult to find in the glacial-infested days of March). However, I now see the error of my ways in dealing with these shrinky dink things. It's great if things germinate rapidly within a week as was my experience until this year, but keeping the moisture levels right for longer periods when things aren't cooperating is a big challenge. I think using a big 72 cell flat with pro-mix is going to be the plan for 2007.

Thanks for letting me confess my sins. Aren't you glad Lent is over, Bully? I had my first latte on Easter morning and was speed-talking all day, lol.