Depressed! Things aren't germinating!

[sweetcorn]

I feel like I'm getting it all wrong! I planted 18 French, 18 white, and 18 runner beans in pots and have a grand total of 3 green French beans germinated! What's going wrong? I planted them indoors. I also planted green and yellow courgettes - only the green ones have come up. Is it because it's been cold and low sunlight? Wondering why I bother!

[Bigmallly]

It's all been rather slow sweetcorn, try & be patient. We need a few weeks of sun then you will see the difference.

[veggiechicken]

^^^^ and you don't really need sun to germinate beans and courgettes, just warmth. Do you have an airing cupboard where you could put the ungerminated ones for a few days?

[Florence Fennel]

As VC says, you don't need the sun to germinate seeds. If three have appeared, it may be that the others will emerge in the next couple of days. If none of the yellow courgette have appeared, it may be that the seed is not viable? There's plenty of time to sow again, so don't despair, keep going and be patient

[taff]

check the age of them too. I just threw away about 20 borlotti beans that rotted, but three germinated. In a pot, 5 out of 6 germinated, one rotted. The pot ones are newer than the other ones that completely rotted.

[CaroltheCarrot]

I feel like I'm getting it all wrong! I planted 18 French, 18 white, and 18 runner beans in pots and have a grand total of 3 green French beans germinated! What's going wrong? I planted them indoors. I also planted green and yellow courgettes - only the green ones have come up. Is it because it's been cold and low sunlight? Wondering why I bother!

Swear a lot then sow some more, works for me!

[Bren In Pots]

I didn't think my beans were germinating until I looked under the loo roll tubes and saw their roots popping out.

[chris]

Try chitting your beans and sweetcorn.

The way I do it, is to soak the beans overnight in quite warm water. In the morning, drain and rinse, then leave them in the tupperware box. Rinse them the day after, and each day to present any mould issues. As mentioned, I do mine in a tupperware box (lunch box thingy), and leave it on a sunny windowsil.

The water from the rinsing is enough to keep it damp and humid in there.

That way, you can see which beans will germinate (or peas, sweetcorn - whatever seed you're chitting - you can even do it with parsnip), and not waste your compost - or have them rot in cold, wet pots.

You can see from the picture below the stages in the beans chitting - from right to left (at first you'll notice the beans go really wrinkly, then over night they plump up and smooth out). Right hand side you can just see the root starting to force its way through the outer covering (look to the left of the white eye in the right hand bean - small bump is visible if you look carefully), then progressing further left you can see the root start to emerge:



At the left hand stage I drop them into 3" pots to grow on a bit before I plant out (to help in the battle against slugs/snails).

[veggiechicken]

That's really good Chris. Maybe it should go in the New Shoots corner, or the recent thread for Newbie Questions. Its too good to lose

[chris]

I got the chitting idea from TS. When I say warm, I mean hot... which I got that idea from Zaz - before she has told me that before sowing seeds she'll pour hot water from a kettle in the compost, it seems to really kick start them. I get very good germination rates doing it this way. Usually germination by the 2nd day.

[rpt]

So it's always the root that comes out the seed first? I haven't tried chitting any seeds, which is just as well since I would probably have planted them upside down!

[Linnea]

Yep, radicle (baby root) first then shoot. wouldn't worry about which way up, the seed would work it out, afterall they work it out when sown without chitting

I've had bad germination on some things this year but think I started them too soon and it has just been too cold. the warm weather earlier in the year got me wanting to plant stuff!

[donnakebab]

I put bubble wrap round my squash and courgette sewings on a southerly facing window sill. I ignore them for a while and when I do check them out I can usually see a sprout emerging or a litte volcano shape in the soil where it's pushing through.

Keep trying. It'll come good in the end.

[chris]

So it's always the root that comes out the seed first? I haven't tried chitting any seeds, which is just as well since I would probably have planted them upside down!

99.99% of the time, the root will travel down, regardless if you plant it upside down or not, I remember attending a seminar about this, and how the seed "knows", incredible.

Sometimes though, you'll get some roots showing up above the soil, and if you take the seed out the shoot is going downwards through the compost I've had it with a few flowers, but simply up rooting (shooting? (see what I did there?!)) and plating them the right way up properly sorts them out

[lottie dolly]

it's a very bad year for seeds/plants,so far,due to the weather,as others have said just not warm enough at the time we expect it to be,and the poor things won't respond,after all,we not like going out in the cold lol,things are usualy taking of by now,but not this year,all we can hope for is an extended summer,i will not give up,because we like our home grown,