GMTA..LOL..we both thought of it..Body bag roses aren't known to be the best to get started..so I thought hmmm...I know what alfalfa Tea does...So maybe I can give this one a better chance...Roses need to be soaked for at least 12-24 hours and can stay days in water prior to planting ..rehydrating is essential for bareroots and most people lose them because they don't rehydrate well enough before planting....I would never put the pellets in the planting hole as I have heard people say they got root burn and killed their plant...I put Alfalfa Tea on all my Fruit trees...they love it...jeanne

The benefits of soaking are a quick energy boost for the rooting bulb and growing larger,healthier plants with a better chance of survival and more uniform plants.Bulbs under 1 1/2" just don't sell well,but over 2" move well and for a much better price.The 2 1/2" plus sizes are in great demand for culinary uses.People just don't want to clean teeney tiney cloves and most importantly it takes just as much work to grow small bulbs as it does to grow nice big bulbs that get all the oohs & aahs.

Beans sprout slowly and poorly at 60F soil temputature. They do ok at 65F but I may not get that here until it is too late to plant my longer season beans. To be able to plant on my usual June 1 date, all but runner beans need to be started indoors. I do grow a lot of transplants but there is not enough room for all that I would need. It is also possible to pre-sprout beans and I do that with all the beans to be planted on June 1 except for those grown as transplants. After much experimentation, it appears that soaking overnight for 8 hours will result in a lot of damaged seeds. Most beans are happy with a four soak in a jar with cheese cloth over the opening followed by rinsing and draining several times a day. Many will be sprouting after 36 hours. Those that are not are given a second 4 hour soak and roots will start to appear even during that soak. This works very well for most beans. The white seed Clem and Sarah's Big Bean will not tolerate a 4 hour soak and is best started in soil free seed starting or potting mix. The white seed Brita's Footlong does fine with a four hour soak followed by a 3 hour soak the next day. Other than growing transplants, the most reliable way I have found is to start beans in a similar way to that except that many beans are grown in a single pot or tray. A pot or tray of a soil free mix of peatmoss, vermiculite and perlite can be used to pre-sprout many beans and they will continue to grow in outdoors temperatures in which they would not germinate. One method of sterilizing or at least greatly reducing pathogens on bean seeds is to soak them in 3% hydrogen peroxide for 15 minutes. I plan to try that with some seed this year. - Dick

Noticed this this year, I think in a "wegrowgarlic" link; "Note: We are starting to rethink the automatic soaking of all the garlic versus using it just if we think a precaution is necessary as we have been experimenting and have observed that cloves that are handled as gently as possible during planting with clove skins left intact (they fall off during soaking) and planted without soaking have been producing larger bulbs for us than those that were soaked. We are still experimenting and observing to see if that holds true over a number of growing seasons to discount the effects of various weather conditions".