Stickies

[Colin Miles]

I recently searched through and found Johnboy's tips on germinating large squashed seeds. And saved it in my emails as a draft so I know where to find it if I need it again. Then put into practise. All 9 of my courgette seeds have germinated and most of the squash look to be going the same way.

And it occurs to me that tips like this should really be more easily findable on the web site. Maybe as stickies in the appropriate section?

[Shallot Man]

Colin Miles. I would go along with that.

[peter]

That is what the "Technical Data" area is for.

[Shallot Man]

Re: Stickies
That is what the "Technical Data" area is for.

Colin Miles. That's put us in our place.

[Colin Miles]

Well I was the one that pushed for the Technical Data section and if you look you will see that mine are the first 2 posts. But what I was thinking of was more useful tips of the sort that Johnboy has given over the years - the squash germination - see below - and sowing of beans. This is not exactly technical data. When I forget I have to hunt around for it rather than look in a convenient easy to find place. But perhaps this is not possible or sensible.

On big Squash seeds I nick the top end opposite the scar place them on kitchen paper ridged into my plastic petrie dish suspended the seeds in the ridges of the paper and place another piece of folded kitchen paper over the top then wet the entire lot and drain off all the surplus then pop onto the top of my solid fuel CH boiler and have yet to ever have any real problems. They generally germinate so fast that they do not ever need watering in the petrie dish. Too much water is bad news and the seed only needs enough water to initiate germination and let the seed do the rest on its own. Nature programmed them that way it seems.
JB.

[FelixLeiter]

If you haven't got a petri dish, a used margarine tub is good — any plastic container which seals. I do this for French beans, too, which need quite a bit more volume, deeper pleats and a bit more thickness of towel.

[Johnboy]

I use the last inch of a plastic milk containers as petri dishes for small seeds because they are very readily available and expendable.
When pregerminating runner beans I cut the milk container in half lengthways because I need more volume for the amount of beans I am dealing with.
When pregerminating runner beans I nick through the outer skin opposite the scar and then soak in water for 4 to 8 hours before placing them in the petri dish. This means that the bean seed has been activated by water and germination will take place in the next few days. When the primary shoot (The Radicle) begins to appear plant into pots or plant out direct (this depends on the time of year.) Always handle seeds very carefully.
When you have finished with the used petri dishes they simply go into the recycling bin. Next year make some more petri dishes as it takes less time to make new ones than clean old ones.
JB.

[PLUMPUDDING]

No idea what a stickie is, but all the courgettes, pumpkins etc have come up within 4 days kept nice and moist in large modules in the propagator at 20C, planted pointed end down.

[Primrose]

I'd support the Sticky idea too. Johnboy's tips have proved very useful to me, even as a seasoned gardener, and for those new to the hobby they would help save some of the disappointments we've all experienced over the years by repeating the same mistakes every year.

[peter]

Like I said earlier, Technical Data is the best place.

Sticky topics do exactly that, stick at the top of whichever area they're in and in the order they were stuck, now won't that be a mess after a few have been stuck.....