Viewing post #510017 by ARUBA1334

Tom we will make room for yours but the fun part is watching them sprout and grow I started mine last year the 1st week in December using Paul's method and as you know it worked perfectly for me and I will follow it again this year with the same schedule but maybe pull them a week earlier or so. I had quite a few seeds that germinated and started growing through the paper towels I don't think it hurt anything but I may have left them just a little bit to long. I didn't get mine planted until July because we had such a late bloom season this year and I was busy working on this years Seeds's If you have room you may try planting them in 4" pots I had a lot better growth and it was so much easier to line them out to plant them in the 4" pots then to divide them after they had grown together in the bigger pots, Once I got them in the ground the 4" pots really took off and I am guessing because I did not have to disturb the roots but the bigger pots were top heavy and had to be trimmed. I eventually noticed no difference but planting them out was a lot easier ended up with about 800 seedlings growing in the bed it was a excellent year. Here are some pics of the process

Feb 8th & Feb 20th



March 19th



April 24th


May 8th


June 29th & July 3rd


Sept. 9th


Sept 25th


Oct.28th


Really amazing how much growth they put on in 8 months from seed I am sure growing in the perfect conditions of a greenhouse to start had quite a bit to do with it but I couldn't be more happy with them. What started as a experiment to see if I could get a few seeds to grow turned into one heck of a project and they certaintly turned out a lot better than I thought they would still have not made it through a Iowa winter yet but so far so good. The best part should come in the spring when they start blooming should be something brand new to look at everyday and we will repeat the process. Hopefully with the same results