Tuesday, March 15, 2011

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Ah! The sweet smell of spring time!  The buzzing of bees and the singing of birds fills the air in my Florida backyard.  Each morning I look forward to hearing new sounds from the birds that wake me up each day.  Then, I fill a cup with water and go out on my front porch and check on my little seedlings.  Yep! There peeking through the soil at me each day and getting taller and taller.............Here's the latest progress.
  For my next batch of seeds, I'm soaking them first to hydrate them before I put them into the soil. Here's why:

Soaking seeds, especially in warm water, before planting in soil helps speed germination. Soaked seeds sprout more quickly when planted in soil, behaving as if they were planted days or weeks earlier.

How Much Water

Soak seeds in two to three times as much water as there are seeds. They should have as much water as they can store. Seeds absorb only the amount of water that they can hold, not the amount of water they are soaked in.


Seeds cannot be soaked in too much water, but they can be soaked for too long. Seed packets should have guidelines for soaking. Generally, soak seeds for 8 to 12 hours. Soak large seeds overnight.

Soaking seeds provides them with hydration. Seeds absorb nutrients from the soil after they are planted, so they need to be transferred from water to soil to develop.

For my next indoor project, I'm going to mosaic my kitchen table top.  I'll post the before and after pictures soon.  First, I have to break up all the china plates and cups I've been collecting over the years into small workable pieces.  I use ceramic tile glue and a plastic knife to spread it on each piece.  There will be a center motif and from there just a go with the flow kinda pattern.  You let that dry over night and then the next day add the grout.  As the grout dries you wipe it off with a damp sponge until you get all the grout off. 

We used to do many craft projects from my home for my daughter's school group that I organized each week.  We did stepping stones for the garden in one of those classes.  You just go down to your local home and garden store and buy a round or square stepping stone and the above supplies and create your very own work of art for your garden path.  Here are the ones we did.

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