Transcript:
Hi, my gardening! Angels, welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, I am Jess. And today I’m so excited because we are going to be starting our succulent seeds. I bought these seriously several months ago, and I have just been so busy and haven’t been able to start them, but we have so many different varieties here. I will include a link down to the video that I talked about purchasing succulent seeds because it’s very easy to get scammed and so definitely watch that video and just so you can kind of learn what to watch out for and how to kind of find a reputable seller of succulent seeds, So this is going to be a several part series and what my goal is. Is that in each video of the series? I’m going to be showing you. Um, kind of a different step of the succulent seed process. The thing is is its I’ll make a whole video at the very end, but this is going to take me probably a year to actually grow and go through all the steps. And so I’m just going to take you guys on the journey with me while I do it. And so today is the first video of this series part one. And so I’m going to go over how to plant the seeds. What type of soil medium you need? How exactly how to set them up where to set them up? Light water, all of that good stuff. And then once we get it set up, I’m hoping to show you a little update at the end of this video and we’ll have a part two coming out soon. So first topic is why grow succulents from seed and also when to grow succulents from seed. So if you have a grow light, you can really grow succulents any time of the year. It doesn’t really matter otherwise. You’ll just want to have a really sunny location. Um, I personally wouldn’t try to grow succulent seeds outside unless you have a very controlled area just because they’re going to be very susceptible to wind and weather and temperatures dropping. So if you can grow them inside, that’s probably ideal as far as the why I only grow succulent seeds in very specific instances, And that is when I find a succulent that I want that is considered more rare or hard to find different things like that. If I can find the seed for that, that’s usually how I end up going with it because I don’t want to spend 40 on one succulent for it to maybe die. Um, but if I can buy a pack of seeds for three or four dollars and get 10 of those succulents, eventually, then that is definitely the method. I’m going to be going, so I have done this with hedgehog Cactus and Echeveria Laowiz. So this here is my echeveria. One of my Echeveria Louie’s That I grew from seed over this past year and a half and you can see. He’s still pretty small, but about a two and a half inch. One of these would cost forty dollars and I’m not that dedicated. So this is a great time to grow from seeds. If you want a specific variety, that’s just a little bit too expensive for it to be rational, so now let’s talk about the supplies needed, and I’ll list them right here, so you can see them in the screen. Um, so obviously, the first things. First you’re going to need some succulent seeds. So you can either collect these yourself from your flowers that have bloomed from your succulents that you’ve pollinated or you can purchase them. I will include a link down below to my favorite shop. It is rare plants, dot m. E and that’s where I buy all of my succulent seeds. Now I have bought from Etsy and some from some of several Etsy stores in the past And the trick with Etsy. Is that it’s really hard to tell. Who’s a reputable seller or not, which I don’t go over in my, uh, scams video, so definitely go check that out, but you’ll need some succulent seeds. So then next you’re going to need a container to start your succulents in. These are the containers that I’m going to be using? I have a lot of them because I have a lot of seeds, but this is honestly just a produce container that I am upcycling. This is what my spinach came in when I bought it. And so what’s great and perfect and this is what I want. You guys to look for as well is a clear container so one where light can go through on the sides can go on the lid. That’s going to be your best bet. And then the second quality that it needs to have is that it needs to be actually able to be sealed. The lid needs to be able to be sealed. I’ve used saran wrap in the past or plastic wrap and it just doesn’t work as well. If you can actually seal the container, it works so much better. So definitely you’ll want one of something similar to this. You can just grab some cheap plastic tupperware, or you know something like this that it’s going to be trash anyway. So this is what I’m going to be using. Just make sure that you can ruin it because we will be cutting holes in these. So then you’re going to need a knife or a pair of scissors so you can actually make the cuts? I shouldn’t say holes the cuts because what we’re going to be doing is making little slices on the bottom of these. Because if you make actual holes, the soil is going to be able to pull out of the holes and kind of fall through, but if you make little slices, it’s not going to be able to do that as easily, so you’ll need a cutting device. The next item that you’re going to need is sand. So this is my bag of paper sand that I’m going to be using and what I really like about. This is that it’s a very fine sand but also has some bigger pieces. Um, very fast draining, and it’s very cheap. So when you’re purchasing sand or paper sand, this can be play sand as we’ll. Just make sure that it is not treated for weeds. Because if you have a herbicide in your sand, your succulent seeds, which are plants are not going to grow, so make sure that it is not treated. Whatever you do use. Um, but for sure, you are going to need. Sand, I’ve tried other potting mediums, and you can sure try them. But sand has definitely proven to be the most effective. So with my soil medium. Today I’m going to be combining a few different things, but if you want to just purchase one type of potting medium, make that be the sand. Um, the next thing is is that you’re going to be needing a large piece of cookware, so like a sheet pan or cookie tray sheet, just something that can hold your soil because we are going to be putting or your sand because we are going to be putting this in the oven to bake it for a little bit to kind of sterilize it so to say, so then you’ll need an oven. Get a spray bottle with some water. That’s going to be really important in kind of setting the seeds and then a stirring utensil to kind of stir up your sand while it’s baking, and then the last thing you’ll need is a permanent marker so that you can write the name of what you’re growing on top permanent marker is great because water doesn’t. Rub it off! Um, only alcohol does, so it should stay on our containers very easily, so then the other two items that I’m going to be adding that are completely optional for you are pumice and I buy my pumice from general pumice products link is going to be down below for that one and succulent soil, and so you can use any type of succulent soil really doesn’t matter. I like to add just a little bit as kind of a base layer. I think it helps kind of give the sand a little bit more nutrients and just kind of gives a nice little base, but that’s going to be a very little amount as you’ll see here in the next clip and so, um, I add just a few scoops of the pumice to kind of give it a little bit more drainage, and then it’s majority sand, though, um, so let’s go make our soil and prep that, and then we’ll bake it so when we put it in the oven, it is going to be at 200 degrees Fahrenheit or 93 degrees Celsius, and we’re going to bake it for about 30 minutes or until your stuff is completely dried through so for mine. It actually took about an hour before I felt that it was actually dried up. Um, that was kind of my indicator. Just making sure that it was very well baked through my sand had a little bit of moisture in it, so I just wanted to make sure to cook that out. Really, the cooking process is going to be extremely important and I urge you not to skip this step because it’s going to help minimize the amount of like bacteria and fungus and mold and all the fun organisms that will like to grow in our very humid little terrarium or greenhouse so to say, and so if you can eliminate that as much as possible before filling up your containers, that’s going to be ideal, so let’s go ahead and get started on that. So all right, so our soil sand pumice mixture is out of the oven. You will want to make sure that you let this cool completely, and then the next step, so you can kind of set this aside for a second. The next step is, we’re going to make our slices in our containers. So just take your knife and they don’t have to be very big slices. Just make them about an inch or a few centimeters. It’s really just to provide some drainage holes, but then also this is how we’re going to be watering our plants, so you’re going to be setting this in water and the water is going to soak up from the bottom, so just make a few little slices and you should be good to go, all right, so I put four little slices in here, really, nothing too specific so now that we have our slices done, We are ready to load up the trays. I’m very excited for this. Um, so since you just went through all of the work of sanitizing your soil as best, you can, obviously it’s not really sanitized. Um, just try to make sure that when you do touch the soil. Your hands are clean. Um, your containers are clean as best you can obviously we’re not going to be able to prevent everything, but just do your best to try to keep it as sanitary as possible, So I’m just going to scoop up. So I like to give it a nice, gentle tap, but you’ll want about an inch of your soil sand mixture in the container. So you can see that here, So then the next step now that we have all of these filled up. Is I’m going to go set these in the sink and just fill up your sink with some water or a tray or something? And then go ahead and set this down in that, and you should visibly able to see the sand Get wet and so just wait until it is completely soaked through. And I’ll meet you back here in a second. So now you can see that my soil is nice and wet. Um, it’s a little bit darker. It is nice and saturated, which is exactly where we want it for planting the succulents next, So let’s see here. I have so many different varieties of succulencies to choose from. Okay, so I think I have a few picked out, so I’m going to be doing two in this container, and these are the names of them and don’t even ask me to say those, um, but I’m going to plant those two in here. I’m hoping that they’ll look different enough that I can really differentiate between the two. I’m going to try to stick to half and half, but they always kind of get mixed up a little bit, and then I will do this one. And how about an echeveria now? Typically, I would say try to stick to one per container, but I have so many succulent seeds in only so many containers and so I’m going to just do two in each, and if I really need to, I can always pull out the ones that are growing a little bit faster or at a faster rate, But really, you keep the lid shut for so long. It doesn’t really matter anyway. So now we’re going to be putting the seeds in the trays, and the seeds are extremely small, so some of these look like literal dust. So just be really careful with those. Just go slow and make sure that you don’t try to put a whole bunch of seeds in one spot. Try to sprinkle them throughout, so lets. Get a little bit of a close-up and I will show you how I’m going to kind of spread these out a little bit, so I don’t even know if you guys can see these seeds, but they are so small. I’m going to take a sheet of paper and pour my seeds out on the sheet of paper, so I can see them all individually, So I think I got all of them out here. So I’m going to try to put these ones on this half. Try really hard not to breathe too heavily on them and scatter them everywhere, but I’m just going to take one on the tip of my finger and just kind of have it drop in a specific spot. Okay, so those were the last of these seeds and what I’m going to do is just try not to touch this area. You do not bury these because they are so small and they actually need the light to germinate. So I will show you once I get. These ones settled what I’m going to do next. These ones are a little bit of a larger seed, so they’re going to be a lot easier to kind of spread out and see where I plant them So now that all of my seeds are in the container. I’m going to gently tap them out and what this is going to do is try to settle the seed onto the soil. Then with my spray bottle, I’m going to gently mist. It and what that is going to do is hopefully settle the seeds down to make sure that there’s good contact made with the sand. So then next I’m going to write on each side with my permanent marker. What they are so now that the labels are on there, you can simply snap on the lid. This is going to lock in our humidity. So now I have a fully finished seed container and you just repeat the process with all the rest of them. So now what I’m going to be doing next with this is actually placing this under my grow light. So if you have grow lights, that’s a great option. Otherwise, just find a sunny location, so like a window sill or something again. Try not to try to avoid placing them outside. Um, the sunlight might be a little bit too harsh. The grow light that I’m going to be placing the seeds under is actually going to be quite a bit of a distance away from the actual surface of the lid. It’s going to be about double what I put my normal succulents under. So if you have a grow light, um, mine is going to be a good foot in half at least away from my seedlings, just because I really don’t want them to burn, but really, you do need that light for it to germinate, and it needs to be a little bit warm, so just make sure it’s in a warm room, but if you’re under the girl light or in a windowsill. It really should have that each succulent variety is going to have a different germination rate. So, you guys if you see growth? After a week, great, if you don’t see growth after two months, hang in there because you might see it eventually. Sometimes they take like three months to germinate. It just depends on the succulent variety, so the more you know about the secular variety, the better, but it really truly does take a really long time for them to actually germinate. So I just encourage you to hang in there, all right, so time for the first update. So these are the ones that I think I’ve seen progress on this Pharaoh Cactus. However, you see that you can see the humidity gathering in on the trays. Let me open this one up real quick, okay, so, on this half was an Echeveria, Juliana And this hack was the Pharaoh cactus, and you can see the tiniest little babies. Aren’t those adorable, So I’ve been looking for any progress over here and I’m not seeing anything yet, but I did want to show you these little ones, because it seems like I got a pretty good germination right off of these, so I’m really excited to see those. I wonder if I can’t show you, right. Can you see the little white fuzz underneath this here right there? Those are the roots, aren’t those just precious? You can see on this one. The seed is still the seed capsule or shell is still attached. All right, and then in this container. These ones are a little bit more difficult to see, but you can see the seeds are opening and starting to grow, but they’re definitely not as prominent. So we’ll get there ill. Keep updating. You guys all right so that is it for this video? I hope that you guys enjoyed this little update. I love clear containers Because that’s how I was able to see these little guys starting. If you liked this video, please give it a big thumbs up. Subscribe to my channel so that you don’t miss any of the updates and I will see you guys in the next one.