Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: Hazelb on June 08, 2012, 15:36:15
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I need a bit of reasurance.....
My seed germination has been rubish this year...the worst ever.
I sowed Carrots just before the dry spell...no germination.
Beetroot, carrots , turnips and parsnips when it was cold again..only the turnips are making an effort. Then it was hot and dry!!!
So just had to resow more carrots and some swish card to fill in the gaps, and there are a lot of gaps!
How has your germination been? I think it's the weather, but it could be rampant snails/ slugs / pigeons
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No it'd not just you, and I agree that it's a combination of all you mentioned.
This recent blog post, and the comments, on the subject make interesting reading -
http://wellywoman.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/seed-sowing-no-shows/
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Interesting that Dobies came out well - I was very disappointed with their lettuce seed, 3 different varieties and all poor germination - but I didn't complain, just didn't buy again.
Re the OP - in my case, I know that seeds germinated but were nibbled straight off by something. I was really pleased with a full row of carrots just emerging, but by next day the row was my usual patchy one - something had eaten loads of the seedlings and if I hadn't happened to look at the right time I might have thought it was poor germination. I've started some in cells to fill my gaps too. I always grow chard like that anyway.
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My strange experience this year is peppers. I had presumed like tomato seeds they had a long viability so didn't anticipate problems. I sowed lots of chillies and some peppers early in the year. 39 chillies came up happily but not one pepper. The chillies and one of the peppers came from Nicky's, the other pepper was from a garden centre, an Italian globe pepper I fancied. So with plenty of time to spare I sowed them again, a few more to each pot this time. I did a bit of research and an American horticultural site remarked pepper don't like peat so I used a peat free compost with perlite in for drainage. Again, no show. Finally two pots of one variety had a single seed come up and eventually, two months after sowing one of the other variety popped up. I have them in the greenhouse now a tenth of the size of the chillies. I used the same heat to germinate I used for the chillies and they are the identical family. I put it down to bloody minded nature.
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Not just you!
My carrot germination has been rubbish too, as has beetroot, cauli, cabbage and kale????? What the fluff is happening this year? Oh well, thats gardening fo thi I guess! ???....
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I've sown two lots of peas and have not had even one pop up!
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Looks like this year is going to be one of the most frustrating. Poor germination. slow growth, what hasn't been washed out has had the wind to contend with.
But it's not all doom and gloom - potatoes, onions, oca, yacon, chard, jeruselem artichokes, lettuce, parsnips, salsify - all doing well. Also toms and peppers under cover growing strongly as well as soft fruit.
The celery just loves all this rain :)
There are still a couple of months to plant crops to fill in any gaps.
Every year I grow as many different types of produce as I can on the basis that what ever the climate throws at us something will succeed. ;)
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I lost half my carrots and reset in the same nets 100% or nearly germination. I lost 4 rows of late potatoes to rot. I have however had the best year that i have ever had with brassicas, beetroot, sweet corn, peas,
spring onions and parsnips. I chit many of my seeds before sowing and I know it is a lot of bother using tweezers on my hands and knees to set the seeds but I find it well worthwhile.
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French beans ::)
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We had to sow a 2nd lot of parsnip seeds, as the 1st never showed. everthing else has been ok.
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Me too: toms ± 5% germination and still only 4" tall; ditto chillies. Peas and beans all varieties virtually zero, even after three sowings. Courgettes and squash - well I've run out of seed now and still only four plants a couple of inches tall and there isn't a single brassica of any description. The story's the same for everything except some Poundland cukes and my broad beans. Oh and my spring onions were doing ok but they've been eaten by rabbits. Carrots haven't been sown yet - too wet. Very disappointing.
Geoff.
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i've had a bad year so far the seed germination i thought it was down to poor compost but I've also had trouble with beetroot sown outside ,i reckon only about half of my sweet corn germinated.
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So far I haven't had problems with germination but when we had that hot spell (long forgotten.. ::), lot if brassica seedlings and small lettuce got 'fried' up in GH with the effect that I'm having to redo all those.
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i lost half of all my seedlings some didnt germinate some went mouldy.
Planted what did make it, and went to the allotment yesterday and all my sweetcorn has been pulled out :-( will have to start again but will cover them this time.
I have had no germination on chilli/tomatoes and peppers
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I've had quite the opposite for some strange reason. Went through all my seeds and decided even though some packets had been open 2+ years, I couldnt just throw them away so I planted them. Big mistake! All 70 giant sunflower seeds popped up, 58 out of 60 peas, 50 caulies, 50 calabrese, 65 phlox, 70 canytuft. The only one that I was about to give up on was parsnip, knowing that the seeds dont keep very well but, 4 weeks later a few of those have popped up too!!
I only have a small back yard and my sisters garden to grow things in, think its gonna get a little cramped this year lol
Most of the sunflowers went to good homes via girls at work .... phew!!
BTW all were grown in westland growbag compost bought from local supermarket. Tried their own but found it too woody for young seedlings.
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Three row's of carrots didn't show
Two rows of spring onions didn't show
Few radishes have come up
I have beetroot to go in, and leeks, red cabbage. tomatoes, when I can set foot on the plot its so wet,
June.
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Carrots , peas, springies and beans have had to be resown again and again, parsnips the whole line came up first time. ::)
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I have had bad germination with sweetcorn - have got 20 plants from 3 sowings, no problem with runners, sown lettuce twice, carrots sown nearly 3 weeks ago - nothing yet.
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I was just hearing the same from the chaps at my allotment today, these guys have been growing veg for over 60 years & were saying this has been the worst year ever for carrots, beetroot, peas, beans, leeks etc One lost all his cucumbers for the first time ever (reckons its the sudden fluctuations in temperatures).
Potatoes & tomatoes have signs of blight already too :o
As I'm in the process of taking apart 13 raised beds at my allotment & transferring them to the back garden of my new flat I haven't sown any of the usual veg as I was planning to just grow fruits & loads of varieties of squash at the lotty this year....but out of 26 squash seeds sown only 4 have come up!!!! All were done on the same day in the same way, kept on same windowsill etc etc. I have never had such a terrible year for squash germination, or rather lack of it. Even the 4 plants that have grown have been behaving very oddly like trying to make flowers when only a couple of inches tall ::) I got the seeds from the same supplier as last year & have never had this problem before (but haven't complained). The article shocked me to be honest.....it is disgusting that nearly all the seeds in an expensive packet are actually dead before you even open it.
x Jane
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What baffles me is that my own saved seed from last autumn of gigandes and pea beans are so patchy in germination. I give them every chance, packed into plastic boxes in damp cloths and put straight into compost when a root appears - but very few roots have appeared compared to previous years. The saved runner beans, on the other hand, are vigorous and leap out of their boxes as fast as I can plant them.
I have not had poor germination with other seeds, mainly because bitter experience has made me use the above routine with almost everything. I now only plant out seedlings raised indoors or on table in back garden. So MANY disappointments in successional sowings on the allotments.
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I'm doing fairly well, but it's mostly my own saved seed, and #i start it in pots under cover. I do't sow in the open ground if I can avoid it.
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Finally got some dwarf borlotti and french beans to germinate after 3 goes ::)
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I quite agree with the non germination of seeds, they seem poor this year. I've used Suttons as well for my runner beans, some I've germinated in root trainers on my windowsill and some in the greenhouse on the lottie. The ones from my windowsill which I planted 2 weeks ago are poor, the ones in my greenhouse are not doing that well either. Just have to wait & see if it warms up!
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seeds sown on the allotment have been very poor esp carrots, which I have now re-sown. Beetroots sown in modules at home, early on, are romping away on the allotment, later sown seed has been pathetic and new modules planted out two weeks ago have had a slug attack. Very difficult gardening conditions this year
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Oh I thought it was just me! I got many of mine from vegetebleseeds.net or alan romans. Usually they are good. But this year, it was patchy. The chard has been very poor, brassicas were fine, lettuce and mizuna not too bad. Beets were very patchy. Squash has been pretty bad, and onions a complete failure. Parsnips too a failure (actually I will try to sow some more, they might still come through. Peas and beans were Ok though.
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It's great to hear your comments, looks like it's not just me.
So I've sown more carrots and some swede and I'll re-do the parsnips this week.
I'm going to start other stuff off in modules ( toms, lettuce) then a least I'll know if they germinated!
I've done sweetcorn and runners in modules as well. My potatoes are looking good, I just hope it's not going to be a blight year!!!
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I've had a really hard time getting things to germinate this year, in the ground or in seed trays on my windowsills.
Broccoli did well early on, but everything else has had a really, really poor return.
I even tried a tactic I picked up on some forum somewhere (may even have been here) about putting seeds between two sheets of damp kitchen roll and then sealing them in a plastic bag and putting somewhere warm to try to force germination. That went better, but was a fiddly procedure when trying to retrieve and plant on.
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I tried the method of 'pre-chitting' parsnip seed on kitchen paper. Loads of seeds germinated and put out a little root, I planted them on and only ONE came up in a whole row!
I'll keep my fingers crossed for the next lot I plant. ;D
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I find sowing parsnip in loo roll tubes works well-good germination rate. I also sowed some in newspaper pots and they were fine too. Having said that, they came up pretty well when direct sown, although with more gaps than last year, but that's where the one's I'd done in the pots came in handy.