Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Sweet Pea Seedlings Don't Care About Politics

(Great stuff)
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Astonishingly enough, my sweet peas are up. They germinated very quickly, more than a full week faster than I expected (normal germination is 14- 21 days; these were up in 5 days). Most instructions for sweet peas say "soak in water for 24 hours", but I really think using filtered water this time made all the difference. Ever since learning to ferment vegetables, I'm very conscious of chlorine in water; chlorine inhibits many positive bacterial functions. Surely there's some chlorine-free magic afoot with these babies.

And even though we are getting another 7 inches of snow today and tomorrow, if the sweet peas are up, spring is almost here. Even though my frost date is April 21, I expect they can go out in about 4 weeks (End of March). Sweet peas are tough little buggers.

6 comments:

d. moll, l.ac. said...

Brave little Sweet Peas, they want to support the homesteading cause.

Tamra Stallings said...

Wow, never thought that my water effected my germination time. Several years ago I put in a whole house water filter. One of the many things it filters is chlorine. And several years ago I noticed shorter germination times on my seedlings. Now I wish I could remember if these two events match up, I bet they do.

RG said...

are you nuts? you think a sweet pea would vote for flouridated water?? huh??

PJ said...

Well, Sweet Pea, um, Ilex, interesting point about the chlorine. It must be the reason that plants don't thrive during a drought despite watering them. They need the micronutrients, microbes, etc. I've always wondered about that. When it rains, finally, plants just explode. Does that make sense?

Irma said...

Hey Ilex, it's been almost two weeks..what are you up to?

Nabeel said...

Hope they grow and stay healthy. Didn't get your title .. why the mention of politics?