Germinating Chard and Beets: Update

Steps I took to sprout my chard and beets:

1.)Crush the seed coat on both the chard varieties and the orangey-yellow beet from Jung's (I'll look up the cultivar name and post it here).

2.)Soak in warm water for a half hour.

3.)Strain the seed into a piece of paper toweling.

4.)Hold over night in the folded up toweling in a Ziploc bag in a warm place.

5.)Plant them out at about 1/2" depth, a couple inches apart.

6.)Keep well-watered.

Mine germinated in just a couple days. The temps were high 70s to mid-90s, with 50s at night.

Seed Germinating Tip for Beets, Chard, and Spinach

I read this about this seed germinating tip in "From Seed to Skillet".

I know that stratification is needed by some seeds, but never thought to apply this particular technique to this group of plants. Last summer, I direct seeded some beets and had particularly poor germination. Spring has been particularly cold here and any jump I can get on germination so my seeds are not rotting in the dirt seems like a good thing to me. What Williams does with these lumpy, bumpy seeds is roll them with a rolling pin to crush the outer seed coat. I felt I would surely damage the gymnosperm within, but no.

Upon seeing them crack, I dusted them into a cup of warm water for an hour. Then I strained them through paper towel, folded up the seeds in the paper toweling, and placed them in a Ziploc bag.

Two days later, I could easily see the root panicle emerge and quickly sowed them in the ground in my potager. I also did spinach and placed them in individual cells for planting in the family garden. The spinach on my light rack have emerged from the soil in one day.

With the difficult spring we have had here in central Wisconsin anything a gardener can do to save growing time will be rewarded in your harvest.