Seeds in the Fridge

[Tristan_He]

Well of course I'm sure most of us store our packets of seed in the fridge. But here is my new toy, for promoting germination.

Our winters here in north-west Wales are increasingly mild and wet. Last winter we had only a handful of frosts. So I have decided to get a fridge to control the moisture over winter for groups that I have had little success with in the cold frame, especially Fritillaria and Gentiana.

So far the fritillaries seem to like it, and the seed I had from Oron in the summer has already germinated and is back in the conservatory where I can keep an eye on it (I think maybe I used to lose a lot of seedlings to slugs in the cold frame). We'll see about the gentians...

[Kathy1987]

Hi Tristan,

since I forced my gardening activities my man thought it would be nice to buy another, little fridge, so my seeds won’t take too much space in the other one 😂

And he has a place to store worms for fishing (Before they escape and crawl around between the vegetables 😳).

Have a nice weekend!

Kathy

[Menai]

I started doing this some years ago with mixed success mainly because my fridge was many years old with a basic thermostat so that if it did get cold in the garage the whole fridge froze. Some things tended to germinate when we were away and then collapsed in the dark. I have some allium seed in there now to come out after Christmas.
Useful for wine in the summer!

Erle in Anglesey

[Tristan_He]

As I reported in an earlier post, the fridge has been a roaring success for Fritillaria. It has also vastly improved germination with Gentiana, which also seems to need a cold spell to get going, but is prone to rotting, smothering by liverworts and mosses, and slug predation in the cold frame. In the past, I've often had little or no germination with these.



Gentiana dinarica



Gentiana verna



Gentiana orbicularis



Phyteuma is another genus that seems to need to be sown in autumn and given a cold period. These are P. scheuchzeri.

[Tristan_He]

The other group I've tried in the fridge are Pinguicula. The temperate species need a cold period to germinate, but outdoors the pots are liable to be smothered by mosses and liverworts, especially because they need to be kept moist. The cold and dark provided by the fridge seems to have worked very well, certainly I've never had results like this before.



Pinguicula leptoceras



Pinguicula longifolia



...and just a few P. balcanica.