None of my spinach came up. I bought another variety and my aunt said to soak the seeds overnight. On the packet it says to "wash in a light detergent and then soak overnight." What is considered a light detergent? I'll also take any spinach hints.
i'm sorry Griphook, but i never plant spinach, no need to, i have dandelions. But a light detergent would be one with out all the sulfers added, more natural i guess. Here in Norway we have one called Green Soap. the closest i can think in American terms to that would be Murphys Oil Soap.
Griphook, there is a company called Shaklee that makes a product called Basic-H. It is made from the alfalfa plant and it is a water conditioner and a mild cleaner. I put a few drops in some water and soak my spinach seeds over night. Doing this gives me about 80-90% germination. Just google the company and you can find someone near you that sells their products.
Light detergent means something like dish detergent. And never use any that say antibacterial on seeds or plants.
I've never heard of washing and soaking spinach seeds before planting. Keep us posted on how this works. Maybe it's the kind of seeds that I use, but I always get an excellent germination rate. There are different types of spinach. I use the one commonly called "Perpetual Spinach". You can just keep harvesting it time after time without it "shooting through". I continue to harvest it right on through the winter with the purple sprouting broccoli and Swiss chard.
I've never heard of washing either. What I did with my Spinach, as I was worried about how old the seeds might be, was sprout them indoors using the baggy method and just as they began to show I planted them in an outdoor container. This worked quite well. As usual, I tried just planting some seeds directly in the ground to have a basis for comparison and only about 30% came up and developed much slower.
My Spinach is up and it looks like every seed I put in the ground came up. Can't wait for that first fresh Spinach salad. :-D I grow a variety called Giant Noble and get good results. It is slow to bolt and still grows good if the weather turns hot. Also does good in the fall.
