Sodding, seeds wo'nt germ

Its always the same is'nt it?....you spend months reading how to do it right,follow the advise to the letter,and then....NOTHING.I've put 4 of my very expensive seeds on a small plate on a nice thick layer of tissue paper(4sheets)..then another 4 layers on top of them soaked them with luke warm water,and drained off the eccess.Another plate was then placed on top of the first.The whole set-up was then placed on the top shelf inside my fish tank..for warmth and humidity.Its been 3 days now and just one of my seeds as opened,it has'nt stuck out a tap root yet and it opened on the first day.The other 3 have just sat there like idiots,flattly refusing to do anything.What gives???

Might be too warm, might be shitty water, might be too many layers of tissue paper, might be too wet, might be too bright, might be fucked up seeds. If you're still having trouble in a few more days I'd just stick the little bastards in soil.

I used one paper towel on bottom one on top soaked them and just set them on top of my kitchen cupboards. in 24 hours they where ready.

My missus is auguing with me about keeping the seeds in the dark (under a plate) while they germinate.She grows plants from seed all the time and argues that they should receive plenty of sunlight in order to germinate.I keep telling her that they have to be in the dark but she will not buy it,just keeps saying that they will rot in dark damp conditions.Will someone please explain to her in simple terms why they need to be germed in the dark.Thankyou.

Well I started with 7 seeds and had 1 definite and 1 possible germinate so planted them and nothing came up so I started over until I finally got another to germinate and now she is doing fine, so in the end I only got 1 out of seven which germinated between damp cotton wall placed between two saucers. Give them at least a week.

And sorry I don't know why they have to be germinated in the dark but would like to know also
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It doesn't matter if they're in light or not. Since there are no leaves to photosynthesize, light won't do them any good except for warmth, and you seem to already have that covered. One of the keys to germination is airflow, so you may be suffocating them with the large amount of tissue paper you're using. I would recommend using only one paper towel for germination and remoistening it whenever it dries out.

Also, don't panic yet. From what you say it's only been 3 days. When I germinated my seeds 9 out of 10 germinated on day 4 and the last one germinated on day 5. I've even heard of seeds taking as long as 9 days. So just make the right adjustments and give them another 5 days or so.

Good luck

a common problem for seeds not germinating aside from the fact that seedbanks send out shitty seeds sometimes is that you can give them too much water and they dont germinate because of "damping off"



this is my method and has never failed me yet,

get two piece of paper towel, a decent size, toilet tissue is no good because it will just stick to the seeds, put the two pieces on a plate, put them under the tap and get them nice and wet with lukewarm water, put your seeds on top and then get 2 pieces of dry towel, put the dry towel and top and press gently around the seeds so that the dry soaks up the excess from the wet towels and creates a nice little cocoon around the seed, then put a plate on top of it.

The darkness is beneficial because 1 your not going to give any light damage to them, they havent got any leaves and dont need the light yet.

2 having the plate above creates a humidity dome and the humidity within the plates will be high and promote germination.

I always germinate at room temperature and never use any additional heat sources.

What NonGreen said, except I soak mine for 24 hours first in lukewarm water and use a tupperware container instead of the plates method.

Seeds can take anywhere from 24 hours to 14 days to germinate.

Don't be in such a hurry

A easy way to germanite yours seeds,

Take some kitchen roll... 2 bits and fold to make 1/4 the size they are open.

Run this under a tap, and press between you hands to drain any water off.

Next open up 1/2 of the now damp kitchen roll and place your seeds in, fold the kitchen roll back over and place into a freezer bag, blow the bag up and tie off.

Place some where nice and warm and DARK.!!!

Leave for anything from 24 hours to 2weeks every time you look just re blow the bag up and tie off.

I have just done 14 seeds and had 13 germ in 24-48 hours this way.

There are lots of different ways to do it, just make sure its damp and not too wet, otherwise they wont germ

ive had seed germinate in towels i accidently soaked, i think they were bad seeds from the getgo

I think it maybe that i used too much water on too thick a bed of kitchen towel,judging from what you guys have said.When i checked them yesterday i was able to tip the plates at an angle and quite a lot of water drained from the plate.So iam going to rectify that today.I will remove two layers from beneath the seeds and cover them again with a fresh dry one,so they can get air round them.