What's going on everyone? Welcome back to the show. Today we're going to get a little bit in the weeds, pun intended, and talk about seed germination. And so we're going to get a bit deep, right?

Because I think that understanding some of the botany,

some of the science behind it,

can help you understand why we need to do things

certain ways when it comes to gardening.

And so we're going to talk about some different ways that seeds germinate.

And one of the first cornerstone pieces to know is that seeds are not dead.

If they were dead, they would not be able to germinate.

They would not be able to come back, quote un unquote to life. People who have studied

seeds and how they work actually notice that there is metabolic activity

within the seed while it's dormant, although it is so slight that it is almost

indetectable. So in that sense a seed is still alive because there are still

chemical processes going on in that seed even though it may be dormant for tens of days,

tens of months, and sometimes even tens or even hundreds of years. And so that is

something that I find absolutely fascinating that something could be

dormant and alive for a hundred plus years and still germinate. So we're going to talk about three different things.

Soaking seeds, scarifying seeds and stratifying seeds.

So these are some confusing topics mostly because they all start with S and scarification and stratification sound very similar, right?

And so first let's go ahead and talk about scarification.

Seeds have hulls and these hulls often need to be punctured in some way or damaged in some way in

order for water to get in. As we know without that water or gases, some sort of gas exchange, a seed will often never leave

dormancy, it will never germinate.

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