A sprout!

Wouldn't you know it? I posted yesterday about how there was nothing to see in the seed trays yet, and last night when I went to plant some oregano seeds, lo and behold! A parsley sprout!

What do you mean, you can't see it? It's THERE, I tell you! It's easier to see in a larger version, of course (click the image). Just the little bent stem pushing its way upward, halfway between white marker and tray edge. This morning one of the seed leaves was up and another itty bitty sprout was showing in the cell next to this one. Excitement!

I was surprised, because my reading says parsley should take 21 days to sprout. These guys sprouted in 11 and 12 days in the tray on the heating pad.

I planted greek oregano in the cells directly behind the parsley, which, now that I think about it, probably wasn't the brightest thing to do in the tray on the heating pad because the parsley will want cool growing temps whereas the oregano will want warm sprouting temps. I think the domed tray sans heating pad will be okay because the parsley can sprout 10 days from now (let's stick to the schedule, guys) and the oregano is supposed to take about 10 days, so all should be well in the domed seed tray.

I also planted some greek oregano in a tray that I put on top of the fridge. This year is all about experimentation and learning. I'll compare the sprouting times for greek oregano between the heating pad tray, the domed unheated tray (now under lights), and the top of the fridge tray.


Let me say here and now that oregano seeds are the tiniest things I've ever planted. Here are four seeds on a page from my gardening calendar, next to a penny. I would like to plant a couple of seeds per cell, but it was impossible to even tell if I'd picked any up - I couldn't feel them against my skin. So I put a few in my palm, pinched some up between the thumb and index finger of my free hand, and rubbed my thumb and finger together above the cells. When I saw that a few had dropped, I moved on.

The directions say they should have a "light covering" of soil. Yeah, right. I just pressed them into the surface of the mixture last night. This morning I thought that maybe they need that light covering, so I sprinkled a thin partial layer of seed starting mixture on top of them. I'll fret about the "light covering" until these guys sprout.

The good news is that oregano is supposed to be a perennial in zone 5b/6a so if these little puppies do sprout and thrive, I won't have to worry about working with these itty bitty seeds again next year.