Hi all. Was at Lowes today and picked up a pack of Stevia seeds. I don't know anything about growing it so any help will be heaven sent.
As Stevia seeds are so tiny I found it best to use the paper towel method to germinate them HZ. Here's what you can do: Put the amount of seeds you want to germinate into a moist paper towel. Keep them in a warm and dark place. To retain the moisture simply put your wet paper towel in a plastic bag. At germination the outside shell of the seed splits and a tiny, white sprout called a taproot is seen emerging. When you see those little taproots then very gently place the seeds (root down) into the soil. Some people wait for the first leaves to appear before doing this but I prefer to get them into the soil ASAP. Try to keep your soil equally moist for the next few weeks. Please make sure you don't overwater them at this stage or you could lose them all. I found the best way to keep them from being waterlogged is to spray the surface of the soil whenever it dries out and this should ensure that the seedlings don't get too wet. Good luck and do let us know how you get on with your Stevia - maybe post some photographs for us of their progress - we like pictures here. :-D
Thank you Eileen. I hope mine will sprout,have them going in the Greenhouse. I also will do the papertowel method and show some pictures when they sprout.
I started some Stevia seeds three weeks ago and have little tiny shoots/leaves. I am excited as I have never grown it before. I didn't use the paper towel method but fortunately was lucky starting them in paper cups. Good luck. Next time Eileen, I will try the paper towel method. Looks like that would work very well. Thanks for the heads up.
Im about to start Stevia as well... I think I'll split my seeds and do half in egg cartons and half in paper towels. What's the average amount of days that the taproot shows in the papertowels?
I started some last year for the novelty of it. I had poor germination on it but that could have been because I bought my seeds at the end of the season. Right now I have one plant and it took until spring to actually grow nicely(we have such poor light quality during the winter here, we are 40 miles south of Lake Erie). That said, it's too sweet for me to use. I have seed catalog with 2 books on the use of stevia. 1) Stevia Sweet Recipes: retails for $12.95 2) Growing Stevia: retails for $9.50 The catalog is called Berlin Seeds (330)893-2091 or 1.877.464.0892/fax 330.893.0305 There is no web address it is an Amish run place. I buy lots of stuff from them and their prices have been very reasonable. There was no author listed for either book, by the way.
