Seed Starting - Echinacea

My current fascination is with growing things that are ornamental as well as useful.  The beautiful and medicinal echinacea plant meets the criteria. These seeds are from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and are one of a few packets purchased recently. The back of the packet recommends cold stratification to increase the germination rate.  Huh? After a few quick internet searches, I discovered that some plants need the chilly, wet winter months to encourage the seeds to get started. Cold stratification is just a fancy way of saying that. Hmmm, so these babies need a cold, wet environment to wake up? OK, I can do that! In the refrigerator that is.

Here are the seeds in a nice moist paper towel ready to go into a zip top baggie and then into the chilly refrigerator.

I'm supposed to be checking on them every now and then to see if they're sprouting. As they spout, I'll plant them in some soil.  One site online says the cold stratification process can take 3 months. Can that be right? That seems like a long time. I guess we'll see.......

Growing Seeds - Ground Cherry

I first head about the ground cherry through one of my favorite youtube channels called Growing Your Greens. It's a gardening channel hosted by John Kohler and it is utterly fantastic. He has an episode where he shows his ground cherries in his home garden in California and I was amazed, partly because the fruit is so neat and partly because I had never heard of it before.   These seeds are from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and are the seeds that I am the most excited about!  We'll get to see a golden cherry grow inside a thin husk shaped lantern.  Can't wait!

Above is a picture of the seeds at about a week or two old, very delicate and tender. Yikes! I'm not an experienced seed grower so these little tiny things scare me. I actually killed a few by putting a grow light too close to them. From the picture, it looks like around 7-8 seeds sprouted. Below are the seeds at about a month old, somewhat more hardy looking but soooo delicate still. The packet says to grow them just like tomatoes, so that's what I'm doing. I planted them with some room to add soil as they grow since tomatoes grow roots from the buried stems. The pictures side by side like this really show how far they've come but every time I look at them in real life, it's clear that they have a long way to go.

Growing Seeds - White Tomato

About a week old

For Christmas I asked for and received (Thanks Mom and Sis #1!) some seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rareseeds.com). This place has all sorts of cool things to grow. The company story is amazing too, think 18 year old starts his own company.  In each order so far, there has been a "free gift", a packet of seeds to try out. Amazingly cool. One of the free gifts were these White Tomosol Tomatoes. I'm enjoying watching them grow from seed. It's one of my favorite things to do, I love watching things grow. Dad didn't do too much seed sowing other than direct sowing of things like peas, so I'm on my own here.

About two weeks old

I'm trying to be optimistic, but these little guys have a long way to go. I'd consider it a success if I can get even 1 plant to actually produce a white tomato. I can't wait to see if they grow green then turn white, or if they are white right from the beginning. Stay tuned.....