Toot, Toot!
My mother always told me, “You have to toot your own horn. If you don’t toot your own horn nobody’s going to toot it for you.” A wise woman, my mother. So, TOOT, TOOT, TOOT, MY CARROT SEEDS ARE GOOD! 🎶🎵
I’ve conducted a germination test on the carrot seeds I produced last summer (see blog Sept. 1, 2021) and they sprouted within about 5 days! I’m so excited! Three years I’ve been trying to produce carrot seeds - first year I only got flowers, the second year I got very tiny, obviously immature seeds, and now - WHOOPIE! Three times the charm! I knew they looked good, just like carrot seed… but until now I wasn’t sure they were viable.
My germination test consisted of placing a counted number of seeds inside the folds of a wet squeezed out paper towel and placing it in a plastic bag in a warm place. I checked on them every few days to make sure the paper towel didn’t dry out and when they began to sprout I counted the number that sprouted and the ones that didn’t to get a percentage. There was a high enough percentage of germination for me to be confident they’re good to plant in the garden. TOOT, TOOT, TOOT!
A friend told me it’s better to use newspaper to germinate seeds. With paper towels the tiny sprouts tend to grow right into the fibres and get tangled up. Then the delicate sprouts may break off when you remove the seeds to plant them into your starter pots. So I will try using newspaper this year when I start my bedding plants, but it’s not time yet, for me anyhow.
My seed carrot is the only thing I’ll be planting soon. I want to give it a good start. We don’t cut the tops off our carrots when we store them in peat in our cellar. We just cut off the greenery as close as possible without damaging the carrot, and we don’t wash them. So I’ll select a well preserved carrot of good size that’s beginning to set out a bit of greenery on its own and plant it in a deep pot. Hopefully it’ll mature to provide seeds for 2023! I won’t start my other bedding plants until mid April. My indoor growing area under a grow light is small so space is limited, especially when the little seedlings aren’t so little any more! First the lambs, then the garden. Everything in it’s time.
March 18, 2022
