It's already been a little over 3 months since we’ve started our sowing!
We got the ball rolling with the lavender and leek seedlings. We now have many varieties of flowers, vegetables and herbs: gourmet peppers, peacevine cherry tomatoes, black Crimea tomatoes, flat leaf parsley, purple basil, cosmos sensation, waltham broccoli, jersey cabbage, marigolds, etc.
These seedlings will be used to fill our community gardens this summer and the harvests will be distributed to other community organizations in the Peter-McGill district.
Thank you to the generous donations of the Jardins de l'ecoumène and the Jardin de Julie.
Lavander, the evolution of our little miracle.
Why is this our little miracle?
- It had no prior cold treatment.
- It is the only seed that germinated out of 13 sowings carried out.
- While lavender seeds germinate slowly (usually 2-4 weeks), this one germinated in 10 days.
- After 2 weeks, a lesion appeared on the stem.
Our team feared that this was the end for our little miracle. Fortunately, she recovered naturally.
Our little miracle is part of a kind of experiment that our team conducted. We carried out a first planting without cold treating the lavender seeds; a second with a 2-week cold treatment and a third with a 4-week cold treatment. What emerged from this experiment is clear: cold treatment considerably increases the germination rate of lavender. Although it is already widely known in the horticultural community, we were curious to carry out this experiment!
One germination out of 13.
Two germination out of 13.
12 germination out of 13.
About cold treatment
“Many seeds require a cold period before germinating, in particular the majority of trees and shrubs in temperate climates, but also several perennials and even certain annuals. This treatment is called “vernalisation” or “cold stratification”. A cold treatment indoors replicates the situation of seeds in nature, where they fall to the ground in the fall and remain cold and damp all winter before germinating in the spring when the temperature warms up.
Do you know the benefits of lavender?
“Lavender has long been used as an analgesic, antispasmodic, emmenagogue, anti-inflammatory… It calms cramps, nausea, regulates blood flow during menstruation, relieves colic, acts against muscle contractures and rheumatism.”
