Back in April I cleaned up some Japanese indigo seeds from plants I grew in 2017.
Here’s the little bag I stored them in as I cleaned them:
On April 7th I put them inside damp paper towels to sprout, as I’ve done before. You can read about earlier Japanese indigo sprouting efforts in my earlier posts here and here.
Here’s what one hundred Japanese indigo seeds looks like:
From what I’ve read and experienced, Japanese indigo seeds do not stay viable for long. You’re supposed to use them in the next growing season. if you try to store them longer than that, expect poor results. Since I do not plant Japanese indigo every year, my germination rate is always pretty low. I set up a sheet with 100 seeds to make the math easy.
This year I bought a seedling mat to keep them warm. I thought it might help with germination. Here’s the type I bought:
Here’s how I set it up:
The mat certainly worked to keep things toasty. In fact, I added a towel on top of the mat to keep the seeds off the direct heat. But as it turned out, I got way too impatient to wait for the seeds to sprout on the paper towels.