I am now just using plain water from my tap. I am on a well so no chlorine and my water does have a lot of iron. I am not pre-soaking. My last batch of 7 cups all had a minimum of one sprout per cup within 6 days. So far, no mold. One cup is 8 for 8 seeds sprouted. Every seed in this cup had sprouts by Day 4 and this photo is Day 7 In another cup, one seed blew out through both ends of the seed. I don't think that's a good thing though. I don't like seeing the end turning brown and I don't know how this seed is able to nourish itself. In the same cup this seed shows the seed case skin that sometimes gets stuck on the end of a sprout. It seems to have affected how quickly the sprout is produced. Its much slower than the others This is a third cup. These two seeds split like others I had in Test 3. At the time I blamed it on the peroxide soak, thinking my water was too warm, but these seeds were not pre-soaked at all. These two seeds sprouted on Day 2 and they are the most robust sprouts I've had so far. I am running out of room indoors and there is still about 12" of snow on my gardens so I have to dial it back a little. I will continue to use this method over the summer and I will plant directly to outdoors. I've found that I can maintain the seedlings to 3-4" while still on the rocks and that's large enough to go directly outside under a shade cloth in June. I am looking at getting a new camera as well. It will have time lapse photography so I'm hoping to create one of those documentary-type films that show a seed sprout and grow over a period of a few seconds of film. Being able to document and share the progress has been the greatest reward of this method. I am delighted with the photos submitted by others. Please keep them coming. It's fascinating to watch! Marianne Here is a link that might be useful: On The Rocks Germination

You're right on all points. Just forget about that recipe, as it is unreliable. It is hard to say it won't work at reasonable application rate because plants can sometimes surprise you and grow under the most adverse conditions so there's no absolute things to be said.. If you increase the dosage to 3/4 tsp per gallon (about 150 X the amount recommended) then you will have the same solubility issues which make mixing salts a challenge. Plus, sodium nitrate is not a good source of nitrate and iron sulfate is not very stable in most hydroponic systems. A single powder can be done (check out the commercial product Maxigro for example). A lot depends on water content and user mixing technique. Once you master it, A/B may become as second nature as keeping your butter and eggs in their A & B cartons until you cook them and you might not be as interested in keeping pre-buttered eggs since you might not think they come out as good and always taste the same. (lame example but I want Sunday morning to last longer before getting to work)...

My way is the same as Jay's and Diane's, except for new beds. I do use a rototiller in new beds. If all you ever do is apply mulch, compost, or even organic fertilizers, etc. as a 'side dressing' on the ground around your plants, those materials will be carried down into the soil over time. Rain carries some of the ingredients down into the ground, earthworms and other soil-dwelling critters do the rest. When you pull weeds, that action allows some of the upper mulch type materials to go down into the soil and the same thing happens when you use a trowel to plant things. If you never do anything but pile mulch up on the surface of the ground for the rest of your life, you'll still end up with great soil. I'll use our woodland as an example. We have very thick, dense red clay on all of our property. In a few cases, the clay is deeper down and there's a shallow layer of sand or silt on top of it. In most of the area, all we have is that red clay. In the woodland, though, we have about 8-10" of dark brownish-black, rich, humusy soil that is incredible. It has formed, of course, from the decomposition of leaves, wood, and even the bodies of insects and animals that die in the woods and decay there. No one (except, perhaps, the armadilloes or squirrels while digging) goes into the woods and rototills the organic matter into the clay subsoil every year, but over time the nutrients from that humusy soil work their way down into the clay too and even improve it. I do have a little Mantis cultivator that I sometimes like to use to work large amounts of organic matter into a vegetable bed that is being rennovated during the off season, but I know I shouldn't ever use it except when amending new soil. Rototilling or even heavy digging destroy the structure of the soil and neither one is especially good for it because they can lead to compaction. When earthworms and other soil dwellers, including all the various forms of microscopic life in the soil, tunnel through the soil, they leave little tunnel-like passageways that allow moisture, roots, and nutrients to move easily through the soil. These little passageways are an important part of soil structure, so the less we disturb our soil, the better it is. I used to think I had to rototill every bed before planting every year because that's what we did when I was growing up. It has taken me a long time to come to the realization that the less I disturb already-amended soil, the better for it. Nowadays, I try to focus on mulching, mulching, mulching. I bet I add at least 12" of mulch to each garden bed each year (over the course of the season, not all in one day)because I use a lot of ingredients like grass clippings from our lawn, old spoiled hay or straw, and chopped/shredded leaves and they break down and decompose very quickly, feeding the soil in the process. I'd be surprised if the cow manure burnt your bulbs' foliage, especially if you were using standard bagged cow manure that was not labeled "100% Cow Manure". Most bagged cow manure sold nowadays (except the Black Kow brand) is not 100% manure and is, instead, lots of filler, and the filler usually is very poor quality black clay. Most bagged cow manure has "up to 10% manure" so you probably couldn't burn plants with it if you tried. I've added large amounts of Black Kow 100% manure with no fillers to my garden beds and never have had it burn plants. If 100% cow manure won't burn plants, I don't think 10% would. Whatever happened to your plants, I don't think it was the fault of the manure. I've never added really fresh "local" manure to my beds because it has to be composted first in order to kill all the weed seeds and by the time it is composted there's nothing in it that would harm plants. However, because of all the issues with herbicide contamination, I don't use local manure any more because the ranchers here routinely use purchased hay to supplement their own pasture forage, and there's no telling what herbicides might have been sprayed on those purchased bales of hay when it was grown. If I used manure (any manure) and had issues develop after that, I'd be more likely to suspect herbicide contamination than to blame the manure itself. If your beds need nutrition now, I'd top dress the soil with a good organic fertilizer, and pile mulch on top of it so that rain (if it ever rains again) and irrigation water will carry the materials into the ground. If you don't mulch on top of the top-dressed fertilizers, they can be washed away by heavy rainfall or irrigation. You can, of course, use a hand trowel to work the organic matter deeper into the soil, but it is a lot of unnecessary work because the organic matter will get worked in over time. I just top dressed my onion beds this past week and will mulch them as soon as the wind stops blowing 25-40 mph which probably won't be until Tuesday. I wish I already had mulched them, but you have to work with the weather you have, and this windy weather is making it hard to get things done outside. If I tried to mulch yesterday, today, or even tomorrow, my mulch would end up blowing into another state. Dawn

Advance would be my choice too. It will provide and smooth and durable finish but since it is still alkyd, some yellowing is a given though not nearly as much as a conventional alkyd. If you go with an toned offwhite then it should not be an issue. Regardless of which choice you make, proper surface prep is the key to success.