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Germination/planting out question

15 years ago

"I remove the tops when the container is done germinating."

I'm curious as to how you know when they are done germinating. I remember last year that I had several containers with 1 or 2 sprouts in them. How long do I wait? I have several jugs sprouting and some that look big enough to plant out. (Forget about true leaves, I can't tell the true from the false! I just plant out when they look like a plant.)

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Comments (4)

token28001
15 years ago
They are done for me when I am satisfied with the number of plants I can get out of each container. I might have sown 100 seeds, but if there are 25 decent sized plants, I'll go ahead and plant out. Then I scatter the soil around that area or somewhere else in case some of the remaining seeds decide they want to live.
seedmama
15 years ago
This year I'm not going to wait for germination to be finished. I'm going to plant out as things are ready, to the degree I can keep up. Otherwise, I'll realize all of a sudden that it all is ready, and all needs to be planted out. I have a small number of Lupin Tutti Frutti I hope to get out tomorrow, and perhaps some Penstemon Iron Maiden and Rocky Mountain. If, by chance, they were early germinators, destined to die because they sprouted early, I'm okay with that.
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token28001
15 years ago
You know seedmama, I've decided to take the same approach in regards to whether they live or die. I can water and baby and fertilize til I am blue in the face. But I can only do so much plus work at the store and build models at the same time. So they are pretty much on their own once I plant out.

We've got 4 days of rain in the forecast this week. I might spend Tuesday planting out some things I skipped today. I'll have plenty of flowers in the garden this year. If I only get 3 clumps of salvia instead of 12, I'm okay with that.
soonergrandmom
15 years ago
seedmama - I put my Tutti Fruiti Lupin in the ground a couple of weeks ago, as soon as they were big enough for me to handle. They didn't even have true leaves at the time. They are still very small, but they now have several leaves, in spite of the fact, that I forgot they were there and hit them with a 60 mile an hour wind from the leaf blower. LOL I thought early would be best so they could establish a little before the heat hits. Mine have had some pretty cold weather and almost an inch of rain since they went in the ground. They seem to be pretty tough.

Token - With all the plants you have growing, I doubt that you will miss a few. Your tomato plants look great BTW.

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