Germinating seeds. Need help.

[bubble99]

DS2 came home from school recently with a bean seed on a piece of damp cotton wool. It germinated and I potted it into a little pot of compost where it's doing really well. I'm now trying to do the same with some squash seeds but I'm confused. The packet said to cover the pot with polythene during germination. Should the polythene have air holes in it or not?

Probably not - I'm guessing it's to prevent the compost drying out and maybe to keep things warm. Although it wouldn't matter if there were a few holes or the seal wasn't perfect because it would still slow down the loss of moisture from the surface of the compost and the temperature inside would still be elevated.

For example, that's what you do with cress seeds - I recently grew some of these with ds and we put a plastic bag over the container until after germination and they were fine, no holes in the bag although the seal wasn't perfect.

HTH.

Bubble - I tend to just stick the pot into a poly bag which leaves plenty of air in the bag around the pot IYSWIM!

I've had some good germination this year - gourds, pumpkins, tomatoes, mint, lemon grass, rocket, basil, coriander, sweetpeas, peppers etc

Shall need to pot on soon!!

Not bubble, covering the pot with plastic bag allows condensation to form and keeps the compost moist.

It should be covered, ideally, with the silk canopy from an Otango Spider reared in captivity. This allows excellent air movement but prevents excessive moitsure building up.

Placcy bag around the whole thing else 1.5 litre drinks bottle karate chopped in two will give bubble junior a greenhouse... keeping moisture in, raising temperature a tiny bit etc. Don't worry about air movement / rot, it'll be OK.