Day 137: Seeds have a shelf life. Some are only viable in the first planting season after harvest. Others may lay dormant for years, even though buried in soil. That said, because dates printed on seed packets are generally quite conservative, you can always plant a "test run" to determine the germination rate of seeds stored past their recommended pull-date. I wasn't sure how long cilantro/coriander would keep, so I planted my "leftovers" in a flower pot and set it in the kitchen window two weeks ago. Within a few days, I had sprouts. However, they didn't look like coriander. After a few days went by, I recognized them as sunflowers. I shouldn't have been surprised. The squirrels get in my garage and hide their gleanings in the open bags of potting soil. I dutifully pulled up the "volunteers" and waited for something else to pop up. The next thing to show was a monocot, i.e., it had a single cotyledon leaf, again not cilantro. Cilantro is a dicot. When it sprouts, it exhibits a pair of leaves. Weeding out the monocots, I discovered that they were attached to millet grains, more bird seed stashed by gardening rodents. Now I am left with a potful of dicots which should produce true leaves shortly, and if they don't look like cilantro this time around, I'll have to buy a new packet.
No comments:
Post a Comment