Peat pellets, to earth, to chipmunk mouth

17 years ago

This is the first year in decades that I've attempted flowers from seed, rather than flats of small plants. After placing 84 Moonflower seeds, one at a time, in a jeweler's vise and individually scoring each one, I soaked them for 48 hours so they'd sprout rapidly. Next, I put one seed each, 1/2 inch down into peat pellets and kept them indoors until a dozen or so began to curl up out of the surface. Took all of three days.

The hard part was preparing the narrow little bed in front of my chain link fence and planting each pellet. That was a 12 hour project, mostly due to having to dig out vines.

I am planning to criss-cross the plants by tying them along the same slant as the fence, every other plant going the opposite direction. (Hope that makes sense.) It seems to be the quickest way I could cover that fence, after having recently cleared it of assorted wild vegetation (privet, honeysuckle, poison ivy, Virginia creeper, briar.)

I was thrilled that by the end of the same day, some of my new plants had already lifted their heads out of the soil. Moonflowers come up with the tough seed coat still tightly wrapped around the first seed-leaves. It can take days to fully fall off, while the leaves are expanding and extracting themselves.

Day two, lots of little plants were up or breaking the surface.

Morning of day three... I was devastated to wake up today and find about 1/3 of my plants decimated by squirrels or chipmunks. The seed-coat/first-leaves bitten off, found to be inedible and just left lying on the ground. One little plant (about 4" tall) bitten off and lying there. Five or six peat pellets dug up, pawed over and left torn open.

Nothing was eaten, just the broken up remains of everything. I had sprinkled a trail of rodent repellent down the length of the bed, but where it had worked fairly well in the planters, it sure didn't in the open ground. I'm crushed. All that work to do over again.

WHAT can I do to prevent this happening again, when I re-do this project? I'll soak them, but there's no way I'm going to hand-nick that many seeds again. I'd really like to just abandon the project, but this fence really needs to be covered to hide all that's beyond it. I'm guessing when I go out again tomorrow, on day four, there will be even more plants ruined.

Thanks in advance for whatever you might be able to suggest.

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Comments (7)

brendan_of_bonsai
17 years ago
there has to be a better way than putting the seeds in a vice, how about holding them in a pair of needl nosed pliers?
debbiep_gw
17 years ago
I'm in Ga to.I just plant mine.No soaking,chipping or anything.The last ones recently came up in about 4 days.I figure its the heat.Good luck with the animals.Debbie
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srburk
17 years ago
Just soak them...in my humble opinion, nicking is not necessary. I started quite a few morning glories this year--all came up and they were just soaked overnight to 48 hours. Good luck!
dancegypsy
Original Author
17 years ago
Hi, Guys! Thanks for the responses.

As I mentioned in my first post, there's no way I'm going to nick those seeds again... soaking only. Brendan, even with the vise, it was difficult to hold those seeds still enough to saw a little crack into them. Actually, the vise was extremely efficient, but there's no way I'd go to that much trouble again when it's not necessary. I was mostly following directions for a speedy germination. If they can come up in 4 days without all the hassle, (thanks, Debbie!) that's fast enough for me. Like you said, SRB, I'm just going to soak them.

I'm at work on my second batch, as I only have 11 little plants to show for all my work (84 seeds.) The ones that really took were the ones I grew in peat pellets to about 5" before setting them out. (Five of those six are still standing; of the rest of the 84, only five made it.)

Now, it looks like something else is at work on them. Three of the original five have one of the two seed-leaves cleanly sliced off and lying beside the stalk. Insects or more squirrels?

I'm about to give up on seeds, at least in my back yard. Too many furry things out there. Comes from feeding the birds for 25 years, I guess.

Is there a forum for cuttings? If my 2nd attempt at this fails, I'm thinking of chopping up a gigantic Star Jasmine and putting cuttings in the ground along the fence instead. (Dip 'em in rooting hormone and sticking them right in the ground.) Maybe I'll just settle for a few isolated Moonflower vines in other parts of my yard.
dancegypsy
Original Author
17 years ago
Update: My 2nd attempt is underway. I have 66 new plants, just sprouting in another Jiffy tabletop "greenhouse." This time, I have a 17x24x9 cage of hardware cloth (1/2" wire mesh) that I built, to protect the seedlings and I'm going to leave them in the peat pellets until they're at least 4 - 5 inches tall before planting them.

Since it is now in the mid-80's to mid-90's, when it's time to remove the greenhouse cover, I'm planning to put the tray on my shaded patio table so the new plants will grow under current outdoor conditions. Or, should I still follow the greenhouse directions and harden them off more slowly? The plants can get to be about 8 inches tall before I'd have to plant them.

Is there anything in particular I need to watch out for? As I said in my first post, this is the first time in decades I've planted anything from seed and it's a pretty time consuming project, thus far.

I read somewhere on this site to use crushed red pepper and/or cayenne around the base of new plants to discourage foraging by squirrels and other small animals, so I'm applying the pepper to the existing plants (9 now) after every rain. Then, today, I saw a 3 foot black snake near my fence, so that was encouraging. I love the chipmunks to death, but it probably wouldn't hurt for them to be thinned out a bit... especially in such a natural way.

Thanks for reading and for any advice you might be able to give.
avoirgold
17 years ago
Have you considered that it might be rabbits? They love tender new plants. Either way, you could try a deer fence or netting over the plants until they are well started. Many people in my area do this for their veggies and young perennials. It is ugly at first, but I figure once the plants are a foot or so in length along the fence they should be fine and you can remove the netting.

Hope this helps!

Jen
dancegypsy
Original Author
17 years ago
Jen, thanks for your response. And the answer is yes, I've wondered if it could also be rabbits; I have all three in my yard, squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits. I've just seen so many squirrels digging and there are identical holes in my planting line, beside the damage to the actual plants. (I'm wondering now why I thought it was chipmunks, rather than squirrels?)

I spoke with someone at Burpee Seed Co. who said once the true leaves appear, they're poisonous and the plants should be safe at that stage, but until then, I do have to watch over them. I've been thinking maybe chicken wire might do it? I'm going to have to look up deer fencing, as I'm not familiar with it and wouldn't squirrels be able to get through netting? I've thought netting was mostly to deter birds. So much to learn!!

So, today my plants are standing up about 8" above their 2" peat pellets (1 to each pellet) and I'm afraid they're going to start falling over if I don't do something quick. The seed leaves are mostly half in and half out of the seed coats, but trying their best to unfurl. (I had about 95% germination!)

I'm thinking of temporarily transplanting them to larger containers until the true leaves appear, but I'm not sure of the best way to go about it. Maybe I could line some 4" pots with newspaper, fill them with potting soil, and plant the peat pellet/plants in those? (I'm thinking the newspaper lining will help hold the soil together when I'm transplanting them again to their permanent location, as they won't be in the pots very enough and the soil will crumble away in the transplanting = shock.)

No matter what I do, it's got to be today. Either that or tie strings from my ceiling to the Jiffy tray to support them, lol.

Peat pellets, to earth, to chipmunk mouth

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Peat pellets, to earth, to chipmunk mouth

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