Alenka - Chirita Tamiana is a weed. It will grow anywhere.

Take your regular 1;1;1 mix, run it through the sieve so that the particles are all small. Sterilize the mix - I would just wet it and nuke it in a microwave for several minutes.

Take a transparent container - salad container from a deli or such, put a 3/4 inch layer of soil and sprinkle the seeds on it. Mist the seeds, do not cover them with soil. Close the lid and stick it under lights. Do not put too many seeds - tamiana has 100% germination. in a couple weeks you will have them sprout, in 4 more weeks start repotting them every 2 weeks - may be just lift them and put them back - to stimulate the growth.

Irina

Thanks for the help, Irina! I heard that Tamiana is easy to grow from seed, but I just want to be sure I don't screw it up -- I desperately need my own personal Tamiana forrest :) And I didn't think of microwaving the soil, that's a great idea -- I was worried about mold, but wasn't sure what I can do about it. Thanks again.

Nothing will stop Tamiana, even the mold. The proper way of pasteurizing the soil is to wet it up, heat the owen to 180 (?) degrees, cover your soil with a foil and keep it there for 2 hours stinking the house.

If you use Physan 20 to keep the algae from gorwing on your mats - it will control the dampening fungus on seedlings as well, the rest of them molds is harmless.

Good Luck with the field of tamianas

irina

Hi
I was reading you message and when you mentioned microwaving your soil you got my attention. I also used to microwave my soil "just because" and because it is an easy way to sterilize it. But after seeing this link I have attached I don't nuke it anymore, now I bake it in the oven after getting it slightly damp. I am hoping that I will get improved growth in the future but for now I cannot see any real difference. Besides any chance to make my plants grow faster and better I am all for it.

Here is a link that might be useful: microwave experiment

Vtstar -

very very interesting. Let's try to do the similar comparison with nuked soil and baked soil. May be there will be a proof never to use microwave ever for the soil too.

By the way - the best water to use - is melted. The raindrops were snowflakes before they reached warmer air. In spring in colder climates plants in spring grow like crazy after snow melts. Supposedly fresh melted water still remembers its crystalline structure - and it triggers the plants growth. Boiling destroys it.

Thank you for the very important input

Irina

So I thought I'd report back. I sowed the seeds right after reading Irina's reply, and a month later I had 3 or 4 tiny seedlings pop up. I had sowed only half of the seeds I had, expecting a high germination rate, but after seeing only so few seedlings, I panicked (figured I was a total failure and messed up something that is impossible to mess up: growing tamianas from seed! :) ), and about 2 more weeks later sowed the other half of the seeds too. Now guess what: I checked the pot again today (which is about 2 months after the original seeds were sown), and it does look like I'm going to be stuck with about 10 million of little tamianas! And I guess 10 million more will pop up in another 6 weeks :) Should have listened to Irina -- tamiana is indeed a weed :) But I love this little plant, so I'm very excited!