I grow in hydro and germinate by placing seed in paper toweling folded over, dampened and placed in a zip-lock bag and put on a heating pad at 85F. Some seeds I pre-soak in Byron's tea.

The only drawback is that sometimes the new root will penetrate the paper towel makintg its removal difficult. I then snip out seed, root and paper and plant the whole thing.

Thanks willard3.....its good to hear that someone else germinates in a similar fashion. I'm still amazed though.....the habs, bonnets and fatalis are popped out of the ground on the third day from planting in their respective pots. I'm beginning to think I may have jumped the gun on planting this year as I was expecting a much longer germination period. Thanks again......animoosh in Canada

Hello, I do the same [paper towling method] just wanted to add ... if you don't have a heating pad, the top of the fridge works fine. just remember to check often.

My Top of the fridge does not get hot. I think that is true on older fridges.

What is the benefit aside from early sprout doing it the paper towel method?

Byrons Tea?? All I can find is lipton, :( Email me with reply please.

Regards;
bluelytes

PS Do ya SOAK FIRST prior to toweling?

I use the towel method ( minus the tea--several tests of mine have shown no benefit to any of the pretreatments)when I have done germination tests--it makes it easy to count the ones that germinated. Other than that I see no benefit.

John

And by the way-where are you Byron? We haven't heard from you in some time.

john

How deeply do you plant them once they have germinated?

Cheryl