Soaking seeds?

[chandasue]

I've never needed to soak anything for my garden although I'm limited to what I can grow in Zone 3-4 so I stick to basics and things that I know will grow fine.

 

[Marianne]

Welcome to SS, chandasue!

I'm in zone 5 and isn't it frustrating when you see all these pictures of wonderful fruits and veggies in the seed catalogs..and then they won't grow in our area?

I stick to the basics, too. No sense trying to grow stuff that hubby won't eat.

 

[patandchickens]

Even in a cold climate, perhaps *especially* in a cold climate (I am approx USDA zone 3-4), I find it kind of worthwhile to soak EARLY beans and peas, so they can get going sooner in marginally-too-cold soil. I suppose with something like bush beans that will poop out before the end of the season maybe it doesn't matter when you start them, but with peas it is a real struggle here to start them early enough to get a crop before summer heatwaves set in, and for longer-season indeterminate beans the earlier you get them in the more crop you get out of them.

Pat

 

[raro]

I've had real success with soaking a wet paper towel, folding it in half, and putting seeds on it, then folding it over again so the seeds are inside, and then sliding the whole square into a ziplock bag for a few days. The seeds sprout, and you can just dump them (with or without a few bits of paper towel) into the ground. Things that never sprout directly have always sprouted this way for me.