Fear of Clowns

I failed horribly last December. The sinicuichi and oregano are the only survivors. I believe the pH of 5.0 was too acidic to allow most of the seeds to sprout. The kratom - the final and third species that did germinate out of the nine - was killed by death from a spray I intended to kill only fungus and mold.

This evening in peat-pellets, I sowed,

• Greek oregano
• French rosemary
• lemon basil
• Italian pesto basil
• Italian sage
• Teppin chilis

I saturated the peat pellets with R/O water with giberillin to 100 ppm. Two pellets per cultivar, one with seeds pressed into soil, one with seeds exposed on top.

In the same pHed giberillin solution, I began to soak seeds of,

• star apple
• miniature pink pomegranate
• Philippine lime
• cantaloupe
• Amy Mellon
• Roma tomato
• Kentucky Blue string bean

I recently performed an experiment on notoriously hard to germinate Sceletium tortuosum seeds by just letting them sit in a giberillin solution. It's about three weeks later and 80% of them have germinated so far while the control group (just in rockwool) has sprouted 20%. I don't have a control group this time, mostly because I'm lazy and take up enough space as it is but also because I had little more than 12 of many of the seeds, so it would be difficult to say which seed's germination was hastened or improved by the giberillin.

UPDATE 2/16: decided a 10 day soak in giberillin solution was a better idea than an experiment with no control that would give me sprouts I want to grow or drowned seeds. Placed all that batch of seeds in wet paper towels inside 1/2 cup plastic containers. Placed all of them in a paper towel on top of the refrigerator where it's a bit warmer.

Labels: gardening, science

// posted by Erik @ 2/06/2008 08:10:00 PM
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