Pre-sprouting veggie seeds...an experiment

Dear friends,

I've been reading about pre-sprouting vegetable seeds before planting in order to speed up the process a bit. So I decided to do some experiments in pre-sprouting seeds before planting. I've found that they sprout much faster inside than they do outside direct planted in the beds since you can keep them uniformly moist, and protected from the birds and bugs and squirrels.

My first experiment was with corn. I soaked some corn seed on the 31st of May, wrapped it in a paper towel and put it underneath a plastic bag in the dark. This morning, almost all of them were sprouted, only three days later, so I transplanted them outside into the garden bed. It's raining, so they'll get a boost from that.

I remember last time I planted corn, only a few came up and it took them forever.

This is also a good way to test older seed to see if any of them sprout. These corn seeds were at least three years old.

I'm also testing some older heirloom bean seeds I have, and some peppers.

bobbi c.