[Mrs Bee]

IS it just me being a complete idiot?
I had no joy at getting celeriac seeds to germinate last year and had to resort to plug plants from Mr Sainsbury.

I have just read in the Garden News a piece about growing celeriac seeds which said do not cover the seeds as they need light to germinate.

I always read the instructions on the back of the seed packets and that is not what it said to do.

Have spent a jolly few minutes reading the back of several celeriac seed packets, all from  major seed suppliers whilst in the garden centre and all except T&M say to cover the seeds and all at various depths

To cover or not to cover that is the question.  Anyone know this one.

And if I should leave uncovered and T&M are the only ones telling me to do so, perhaps I will stop  being so anti T&M

[DD.]

Mine are OK - uncovered - a heritage variety called "Balder" - but that's irrelevant!

[Mrs Bee]

Thanks DD. It is obviously me not knowing enough.
I checked a variety of sites giving advice on growing from seed but none of them mentioned leaving them uncovered.

Bit cross that it didn't state that on most of the packets either.

Still one learns more by the mistakes than the sucesses

[mumofstig]

I did mine covered last year and they did eventually come up - but they took so long that I'd given up on them 

[DD.]

Still one learns more by the mistakes than the sucesses

Tell me about it!

They seem to be doing quite well. I started them in the bedroom using my propagator, (plastic bag) and as soon as I saw the first one, they were into the heated greenhouse. If I hadn't got that facility, the aluminium foil would have come out at this point!

[Mrs Bee]

Mum, If I can find the rest of the packet of the cerleriac seeds I am going to sow a few more without covering the seeds and pop them in the propagator and see if they come more quickly and evenly than the lot that I covered with vermiculite.

Had all the seed tin out earlier, but couldn't find the little beasts. Must organise my seed packets more carefully

DD I have got some that have germinated and are out of the propagator and on the floor of my south facing living room in front of the patio doors. Seem to be OK, touch wood

These are the ones that I covered with compost but they took ages to germinate and germination was very patchy. I started them at the beginning of Feb

[DD.]

A bit of foil never comes amiss!

[Trillium]

It's all because of DD that I started buying lots of rolls of foil on 99p sales   

[Schubunny]

I didn't know that they germinate better uncovered. I've just done some googling and found this...

http://jamesbonfieldgarden.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/celeriac-the-experiment/

So i've just resown some on the surface of the soil. They were already indoors so we'll see!

[Growster...]

Auntiemogs gave me some celeriac seeds, and they went into a shallow tray as any others.

They're all through (thanks so much Auntie), and well away - even after that frost yesterday, because they're next to a greenhouse window!

I read somewhere that celeraic needs a little care when in the ground, like trimming away side shoots. Does anyone else do this please?

[DD.]

Not so much side shoots, (they don't have any!), but lower leaves.

Here's the RHS take:

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Grow-Your-Own/Veg-A-to-Z/Celeriac

[Chiswickian]

I never cover them. I never have any problems germinating celeriac. The problem is getting the blighters to swell later in the season. I'm doing Giant Prague this year and if they don't amount to much I'm resorting to Waitrose.

[sunshineband]

Mine have come up really quickly, having just been sprinkled on the surface of damp compost and left uncovered.

Took six days in a heated greenhouse, with a clear plastic cover over them.

Never had any success last year, so really chuffed 

[Mrs Bee]

I never cover them. I never have any problems germinating celeriac. The problem is getting the blighters to swell later in the season. I'm doing Giant Prague this year and if they don't amount to much I'm resorting to Waitrose.

Ah, now I don't have any trouble getting them to swell, just germinate.

Last year after the dismal failure with the germination and resorting to plug plants, once they were planted we were up, up and away More by accident than design tho'.

We were building raised beds and putting a thick layer of chicken manure in the bottom of them and ran out. So we resorted to horse manure from the local stables which wasn't rotted but we decided to take the chance. We topped that with some free compost from london waste and planted.

They romped away, and as they grew, we removed the stalks.  They were certainly bigger than the  ones available in the supermarkets 

Sunshineband I am obviously going to sow the seeds uncovered in the future.

I do thnk it is a bit off that the sowing instructions on the seed packets didn't say this

[sunshineband]

I just didn't cover them as they were so tiny 

Same with celery, which came up a day later than celeriac