Welcome to Part 1 of our Seed to Bloom series! If you are new here, the goal of this series is to document what growing from seed looks like here in Zone 8A Alabama. We want to compare directly sowing seeds outside versus growing from seed on the inside and transplanting them out, because in the past we have not had success with directly sowing flower seeds in the garden. So this tester bed is our experiment!
The seeds in our new tester bed were directly sown on April 16th. We checked on our seeds on April 20th. Here is what we are seeing so far.
Starting with our sunflower rows. We have two rows of sunflowers and honestly we are not seeing any germination yet. What we did notice though is that something has been disturbing the soil. This is actually something we have seen come up in research before. Animals can dig up seeds before they even have a chance to germinate. Our plan is to sprinkle some ground cayenne pepper out there to try to deter whatever is coming through.
Moving on to our zinnia row — we have germination! If you look closely you can see some sprouting coming through. We have two rows of zinnias and we are excited to see that activity this early.
The cosmos row is also showing germination! One of them is just barely peeking out from under a little bit of pine straw but it is there. We only did one row of cosmos so we will keep a close eye on that one.
So to recap the tester bed — two rows of sunflowers, two rows of zinnias and one row of cosmos all directly sown on April 16th.
We also went ahead and transplanted some snapdragons and one yarrow that had been growing from seed on the inside. We could tell they were not happy anymore and that is something we have learned to read over time. When you start seedlings with coco coir, worm castings and other amendments they can only sustain so much before they need additional nutrients — like fish fertilizer. Once we saw the signs we went ahead and got them outside and they seem to be doing well with the transplant.
That is the update for Part 1 of the Seed to Bloom series! Part 2 is where we will check in on the same varieties — zinnias, sunflowers and cosmos — that are growing from seed on the inside under grow lights. The goal is to see what success looks like with each method here in Zone 8A and share that journey with you.
Chat soon. 🌱