0 Germination after 2 weeks

19 years ago

I am about to reseed my 36 cell tray with seeds I purchased from Walmart. This will be the 2nd go at it. I'm hoping that the seeds which I purchased were just bad. I do have a different seed pack which I would like to try. Here is what I did the first time...Please let me know if anything should be different on my 2nd try!

I used MG seed starting potting mix (which has been working great with everything else). I wet it and mixed it up so that it was evenly moist. I put it into 36 1.5" cells and gently firmed it. I pressed down one seed into each cell and covered about 1/8" with a finely milled sphagnum peat moss and misted with warm water. I covered with plastic dome and set it under my grow lights (shop lights, 1 warm and 1 cool).

And there it's been sitting forever. No signs of germination. These seeds were pelleted and were the very cheapest ones they have at walmart. I know you usually get what you pay for but in my experience those usually grow just as well.

Does anyone see a flaw with my system? Should I do anything different when I try the other pack of non-pelleted seed today?? I was going to empty the cells of the soil, mix it up and put it back in just to be sure it's not too wet or packed too tight or whatever.

Thanks for your help! This is my first try with impatiens as I have a lot of partial shade areas and I'm trying to save just a bit of $$ by doing it myself. This year is my first venture into flowers and I'm jumping in head first :)

Sherri

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Comments (4)

mechele211
19 years ago
Sherri,
The pellets may not have had time to dissolve yet. It has been years since I have planted pelleted seed and I don't remember if there is a difference in germination time but it seems like it would take longer. Sounds like from your description that you did everything OK.
I did a forum search (gardenweb search box above) for "pelleted seed" and saw where this subject has been covered before. Try the search and you may find info to help you. My guess is you need to give them more time before giving up on them.

Mechele
sherribaby
Original Author
19 years ago
I did poke into some of the cells to see what was going on and most of the pellets were still in place. What's the deal with that? I guess I should have allowed an extra couple of weeks for them to dissolve. I will keep waiting :) And now I know. I did receive some other pelleted seeds from Johnny's (carrots, I think) so I guess I will plan the same strategy with them, which is just to wait a little longer.

Thanks!
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busylizzy
19 years ago
Is there anyway you can check the soil temp?
I just checked my records, sowed 2/10 &17/07 Soil temp 75 degrees germination in 10 days. I used jiffy peat pellets not potting soil. i just place the seed on top of the pellet and mist the tops to let the seeds settle in. Lights on 20 hours a day After germination they were kept at 70-75 degrees till 4 true leaves, then I transplanted to 72 cell trays. Moved to a sunny West window in a window greenhouse. March 11th started taking pinched cuttings for propagating more. Propagated cuttings rooting in 10 days to be able to transplant. I have doubled my seed sowed 24 plants and will probably have tripled or more by the May 15 or after frost date.
This was my second sowing after 2/7/07, those seeds failed.
The second sowed seeds were not purchased from the same store, although both Burpee. Dumb me I didn't save the packet from the second sowed from Lowes to check if the lot was different from the 1st sowed. The hardware store that I bought the first failed seed gave me another packet to try, which I have not done yet the pinched ones are making oddles more now.
Hope this helps
melrose_jackie
19 years ago
I normally never cover impatien seeds ~ I just sow on top and mist them to set into the soil ( I use Jiffy mix). I normally get very good germination and normally see seeds germinating in less than one week when placed at 70-75 degrees. I think they may need light to germinate.