Cold stratification is a process mimicking seeds lying in the damp soil over winter. It is useful to help germinate the seeds of perennial plants (plants which come back every year such as strawberries and lavender). The idea is that the seeds stay in the fridge for a few weeks and then are more likely to sprout once they are taken out and planted in soil. For this you will need four things: seeds, a ziplock bag or airtight container, some water and some paper towels or kitchen roll. Happy sowing!
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00:00 [music]
00:11 So here we have what you will need to get started with cold stratification.
00:17 So we have a placket of lavender seeds, and water spray, some paper towels.
00:27 Now this paper towel is quite thin and probably likely to break to keep on.
00:33 So I leave that aside, and this is a thicker one that I have.
00:37 It's too big for the zip-lock bag, which is the fourth thing you're going to need.
00:42 So I'm going to cut this. Now you could always fold it over, but it's a little bit tricky when you add the seeds onto it.
00:55 So I'm just going to cut this to size first, just so it fits neatly inside the bag.
01:05 So make sure that's fine.
01:11 And then, it's a bit better, put it that way.
01:19 So now I'm just going to cut this around the side.
01:28 So there we have two sheets of kitchen roll, paper towels, and put the ends aside, use them for a hanky or something.
01:42 So now I'm going to take my lavender seeds and open them.
01:52 Actually I'll keep it on until they're ready to be planted out.
01:58 So lavender seeds are inside here.
02:01 And then firstly, before I open those actually, we'll just get started on wetting the first piece of kitchen roll.
02:11 Maybe use the flatter side.
02:14 So, one, two, three, four, five, six.
02:23 I'm just going to leave that for a minute.
02:26 It's probably not wet enough.
02:30 But you don't want to soak it, you want to let the water spread out towards the edges.
02:36 Just give it one more.
02:44 And you can see the edges start to absorb the water as well on that.
02:50 So, here are the lavender seeds.
02:57 The date on this packet is so by December 2027, so we've a good three years on these, which is great.
03:07 Most seeds you have to use, well they tell you to use within a year or two, but I have seeds that are years old.
03:17 So you might not get as good a germination rate, but you might get one or two.
03:22 So, with old seeds.
03:28 The lavender seeds are quite small, as you can see, and there's about 50 or so in this packet.
03:36 What I'm going to do is put some of them back into the packet, because there's probably too many in this for this one sheet.
03:47 And there we have about half the packet here now.
03:50 And what I'm just going to do is check this.
03:54 Yes, it's dumping up, I think.
03:56 And then just sprinkle the seeds over it.
04:08 Let's straighten this part a bit.
04:15 And just keep sprinkling.
04:25 Try and space them out. It's not an exact science, but they're too small to be totally accurate with.
04:33 So that's them now on the paper towel.
04:40 We're almost finished.
04:41 And then, so the next process is just placing this over the top of that one.
04:51 Press it down.
04:55 And you'll already see, you want the seeds to have good contact in between the two sheets.
05:01 And I'm just going to spritz this as well.
05:10 Four spritzes on that one.
05:14 So it's like a seed sandwich, basically.
05:17 Going into a sandwich bag. So here we go.
05:21 We have a Ziploc bag here.
05:24 These are just bags you could take, you know, for airport toiletries and things like that.
05:29 So one like that.
05:31 Or you could alternatively use a plastic container.
05:37 C3 ones are quite good because then you can see if there's any seeds germinating inside it.
05:43 And we'll put that inside.
05:45 Then we have this. See, carefully just lift it and try to lay it flat inside the bag.
05:53 I'm going to do this just with the spine of my hand.
05:57 And then just place it inside.
06:05 And this mimics the effects then of the seed lying on the ground in winter.
06:15 Going through that cold period, that cold damp period in the dark.
06:22 And then hopefully waking it up and germinating.
06:31 And once you see the little seeds come through, then you can get little tails, little roots.
06:41 And then once you see that happening, you can take them out, plant them in soil.
06:45 This is still quite... I'm going to give it another few spritzes in here.
06:53 There we go.
06:56 There we go. It's quite a rotten paper.
06:59 But that's it really now for the fridge.
07:02 I just want to make sure that there's some air out here.
07:06 You want it to be as flat as possible.
07:09 And you want the seeds to be in between those two paper toilets so that they're making contact with the damp paper.
07:21 So that's them.
07:23 I'll take you over now to the fridge and show you what I do then.
07:28 So I'll open the fridge here.
07:40 And as you can see, I'm just laying them flat on the shelf in the fridge.
07:47 So that's locked up.
07:54 Again, making sure there's no air.
07:58 Or as little air as possible inside it.
08:04 And that's it now. So we'll just leave it there for a few weeks.
08:08 And just above that one, you can see there's already one that I planted a few weeks ago, and that's lavender as well.
08:17 Lavender is a great plant to plant out. It's a great companion plant for all the vegetables and things like that, that the slugs and snails will eat.
08:28 They won't eat the lavender and they don't like strong smells.
08:31 So I'm hoping to create a row of these after germinating.
08:35 These have been on for about two weeks and I haven't really checked on them yet, like, but this last few days.
08:43 But I don't see any noticeable difference yet.
08:47 But they can take up to four weeks. I think it's usually around the three week mark that you might start seeing the little tiny tails.
08:53 They're such small seeds as well, so I probably need to give it a close inspection.
08:57 But that's the process there.
08:59 And see how you get on. There's quite a lot of seeds you can do this with.
09:03 But check just on the different websites and things like that, you know, Gardening Experts.
09:12 And they will tell you which seeds this process is good for.
09:18 And it increases the germination rate too, normally.
09:21 So if you were to plant these seeds straight in the soil, you might not get very many, you might not get any at all.
09:28 Because they haven't gone through that kind of wandering, full wandering as this is.
09:35 So there we go. That's cold stratifying. Thanks for watching.
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