I re-seeded after all the heavy rain assuming rotting issues but some of the original ones finally did germinate. Just took them much longer than usual. Never tried pre-germinating them for transplanting.

Dave

I've had problems with beet germination, but that was when it was hot (sowing in the fall for winter maturation), and probably my inability to keep the soil moist enough. I learned that the soil really needs to be kept moist.

I mused about soaking the seeds first, but that makes them very hard to distribute. I suppose one could soak them well, stir them into some planting mix, and spread the planting mix into the bed.

It would be pretty simple to test their potency.

Beets germinated quite well this year in my Tn. garden, but spinach was terrible. Carrots germinated just fine in one bed, but a week later... maybe 10% in another bed. Peas are doing terrible, but cilantro, although it took a while, is in bumper crop mode.

The rain and temps here have been anything but consistent. One week the ground was frozen solid, the next it was 80 deg. F in Feb., but now, May 6th, it's 45 F in the middle of the day.

I broadcast a good bunch of lettuce seeds over half a bed very early in the year on a day the weather was perfect. Some sprouted and I thought... NICE! Then, a surprise freeze hit and they were killed. I had enough sown indoors and wasn't too upset. After the freeze, I put out the transplants in the other half of the bed, and when nothing happened for 2 weeks, I was thinking all the broadcast seeds were killed. I was thinking about what to put in the bed, when the unsprouted lettuce from the broadcasting germinated and are doing okay.

The last couple of years have been like this. I have no idea how to do spring gardens in this new climate pattern. Because we are in the middle of the country - halfway between North and South - the weather swings from winter to summer in a day's notice. One day the weather comes from over the Gulf of Mexico, the next... from NW Canada.

Going to have to come up with new strategies.