Pre-Treating Your Seeds before Planting

Posted by Katie Elzer-Peters
March 9th, 2009
Filed in Seed Starting
Tags: flowers, seeds, vegetables

In the world of organic gardening, the question of pre-treating seeds is answered differently than in the world of conventional gardening.  If you buy conventional seeds from a garden center or mail order catalogue, certain seeds that are susceptible to damping off or fungal diseases will be treated with a fungicide.  Some seeds that are very tiny will come “pelleted,” or encapsulated in an outer coating that makes the seeds larger and easier to handle.  Any organic seeds that you buy should not be treated or encapsulated.  They are unlikely to be treated in any way, which means you might need to do a bit of work before you can plant them in the ground.  I have to say, it was very nice to be able to plant my garden yesterday and not worry about wearing rubber gloves while handling the seeds.  After years of planting seeds covered in fungicide, it was a relief.

Pre-Treating Seeds to help them Germinate

Some plants produce vigorous seeds, while others produce seeds that barely hang on to life long enough to germinate.  Some seeds have a thick seed coat, which must be breached in order for the embryonic plant to get out.  There are a number of different methods you can follow to work with certain seeds before you plant them, either in flats or directly into the garden.  Below, is a list of methods to improve germination, and the plants that are helped by these methods.

Presoaking Seeds: Some seeds germinate faster and more reliably if you soak them in warm water for 24 hours before planting them.  The Rodale Vegetable Garden Problem Solver book recommends this treatment for beets, carrots, parsley, parsnips and spinach.

I have never had germination problems with beets, before.  I usually just direct-sow.  I have had issues with spinach.  I just planted a bunch of spinach yesterday, so we will see how evenly it germinates, and whether I end up needing to go back and try this method!

Chitting Seeds: Chitting is a method of “pre-sprouting” seeds.  The term is more common in the UK, in terms of referring to seeds, than it is in the United States, where it commonly refers to pre-sprouting potatoes.  If a seed package has unreliable germination rates, or you are working with plants that have reliably low germination rates, you may want to consider chitting.

To “chit” or pre-sprout seeds, place the seeds in a paper towel.  Place the paper towel into a plastic bag and spray the paper towel until it is wet.  Leave the bag in a bright shady location of the house and check it daily to watch root growth progress.  As SOON as you see the tiny radicle tip begin to emerge from the seeds, take them outside and sow them as you would normal seeds.  This is important.  You do not want the seeds to grow into the paper towel.  You have to time your chitting well so that you don’t end up with a bunch of pre-sprouted seeds on a pouring rainy day, or after a sudden burst of cold weather.

Crops that do well with chitting are spinach and peas for extremely early planting, and carrots for planting at any time.  Peas and spinach take much longer to germinate in cold weather, but can grow in cool soil once they have sprouted.  Carrots take a long time to germinate, and it is difficult to keep the moisture level even during their long germination period.  Again, I may need to try chitting my spinach if none of the seeds I planted come up!

Nicking or Scarifying Seeds: Some seeds have a thick seed coat and need to be nicked or scarified in order to germinate well.  Morning glories and many varieties of Clitoria have thick seed coats and don’t germinate easily without treatment.  You can use nail clippers to chip away a piece of the seed coat.  A nail file will also do the trick.  You can usually tell which seeds might benefit from such a treatment.  If it is very small, fine or straw-like (zinnias, marigolds), you don’t need to scarify.  Many tree and shrub seeds, morning glories, canna and other large seeds do need to be scarified in order to germinate.  Don’t cut completely through the seed, as you will cut the embryonic plant in half!

We’ll See What Happens

Yesterday, I planted some lettuce transplants, a few herbs (sage, oregano, rosemary, and thyme), three geraniums, and a bunch of seeds.  I planted dill, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, radish, cilantro, sweet pea, nasturtium and red poppy.  I have been horrendously disappointed by sweet peas and nasturtium before.  One year, I declared it a “sweet pea year!” for my children’s garden, and NONE.  I mean, not one plant out of seven packages came up.

I soaked the sweet peas and nasturtium for about three hours before planting.  I did not soak the spinach.  I will keep you posted on how my little seedlings are doing (or not).  I did drag all of my garden books outside while mentally drawing a map in my mind to plant things so that I could sow optimum “companion plants” for my forthcoming warm season crops.  I hope all of this works.