Chitting sweet peas

[TwinkleToesStrikesAgain]

Just realised that I don't get my nails done because from March to September I'm in the garden...

Chitting sweet peas by nicking the seed case seems incompatible with my sausage fingers and nail varnish (normally not this vane but...). I have always struggled with decent germination of sweet peas hence thinking chitting was a good idea. Soaking in water overnight hasn't helped in the past - do you need to soak on wet tissue paper until they germinate or something?

I should say that I am good at getting most flowers and vegetables to germinate without issue.

I soak them until the outer skin starts to crack. This can take up to a week. I keep them in a warm room. I pot them on into toilet roll tubes.

I have started 36 sweet pea seeds in batches of 12, with no soaking or chatting.

Batch 1, 100% germination.
Batch 2, only 1 seed not showing.
Batch 3 (different type, "beeline") nothing up yet, but probably early days

@MrsBertBibby last year I didn't chit and I had < 10% germination rate so I thought I'd try something different. Same success rate with cheap and expensive seed, always freshly bought that spring. Weird really

Ive never chitted or soaked. Basically just stick them in some potting compost on a sunny window sill! Around 85% success usually. No idea why though!

I've never chitted and always get high germination rates, but I always sow them in Autumn so I don't know if that makes a difference.

My Year 3s are experimenting!

3 types of seed, each divided into 3 groups.

One group nothing, one group soaked overnight, one group soaked for a week. All then planted 2 cm into a loo roll of potting compost and lined up in trays on the sunniest window sill in the classroom.

Results so far: every SINGLE one has germinated! Great for our garden, not so great for our science learning…

@TwinkleToesStrikesAgain maybe I should send you some of my inner city, chubby-fingered 7 year olds to help!

@KingscoteStaff send them my way!

I loved watching peas and runner beans germinating in the classroom.

Great teaching there! Important to realise that much of science requires admitting your data does not support your hypothesis. Or any other hypothesis you might conceive.

Also free gardening labour.

Not sweetpeas but I soaked my lupin seeds for 24 hours and nicked off a bit of the shell with toe nail clippers.

Very early days but I do have germination.

My DS gave his a quick rub with an Emery board before sowing, I cba and just bunged mine in. They’ve all grown well and are about 6” tall now.

Could the mice be getting them? Apparently they love a good sweet pea. If everything else is germinating it might be that. I think I saw something about soaking them in something unpalatable but can't remember what

So I did the experiment. I planted some directly I'm pots in the greenhouse last weekend - not growth yet and I chitted some and started them off on white paper in a box on the windowsill. Some germination but not 100%