WAKE UP TIME - Stratification

Most sleepy sleepy seeds who spend all winter in a warm cozy paper bag need a little tap on the shoulder or a fresh cold shower to wake them up to get ready to grow. Colin and I spent a couple hours in May sorting seeds, giving them a bath and placing them in containers with cool water where they will sit and chill in the fridge for several weeks until germination time.

This is called stratification and it mimics the natural conditions a plant expects from its native environment. Seeds that are shed in the late autumn expect a cool moist environment like the frosts and snows that cover our northern lands. Those who drop in the early fall or spring need a warm moist treatment to induce germination. Since we collected most of our seeds in the late fall, we give them a cool winter in their plastic containers in Colin's fridge. They sit next to the maple syrup from the market which surely gives them warm fuzzy thoughts about late winter and spring in Ontario.

Seeds are usually stratified for 4-6 weeks, but since we need them a bit sooner than that we'll give them a nice short winter season- only a few weeks in the cold. Hopefully it's enough to rouse them!