Which is better for germinating seeds? Is my well water from the kitchen sink fine?
I am going to run an experiment to find out. Stay tuned for details. @Fieldofdreams @Mateo @Spiney_norman @GreggT @DEEPDIVERDAVE @Meloco1980 Sorry if I missed a bunch but join the party if you have some ideas.
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I have my chair and popcorn. 
Waiting on @Fieldofdreams
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Distilled with a few drops of peroxide.
I use about 2 tablespoons of water and a few drops peroxide. Adds oxygen and a little sanitizing.
Soak 24hrs and then I plant them. Usually 3 or 4 days and they are up.
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I’m lagging bro. I’ve used tap that I set out, made r/o, love bottled water and seriously love the biomass on my pool cover lol. Lotsa ways my friend.
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I could not find Nestle bottled water and that is the one I was most interested in. It is RO filtered and distilled. A completely blank slate? I did not know until today that PH balanced water was a thing were supposed to drink. Pelligrino, should I shake out the carbonation? Do I really need an expensive PH testing kit? Or am I being evian spelled backwards?
Seems like a lot of work for something simple, but carry on. I have well water that I just ph down with a little citric acid, moisten the soil, plant the seed, mist the top to settle the seed, and stick a baggie over it. Works every time.
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Distilled or RO, for germination the seed only needs H20 to start the process, anything extra is just that extra stuff.
Although the mineral amounts in mineralized water or spring water are low, in this case just like the stuff found in tap water and well water, they are unneeded contaminants at the germination stage.
That said, it’s not a do or die thing, just about any water that isn’t highly contaminated will germinate the seeds just fine at the end of the day.
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I use my well water (ph 7.5 ppm 180). Add a few drops of peroxide to jack up the oxygen. Absolutely no reason to use distilled or demineralized water.
Lift off
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Cabin fever. and it’s not even Christmas.
I now know that my well water works fine for germinating seedlings. I had problems with germinating a few seeds. I wasn’t sure if it was my soil, water, or the seeds. I ran a similar experiment, much smaller to find out. I reached out and customer service worked with me and sent replacements. I owed it to them to find out if it was my fault. During the first experiment the Poland spring watered seeds did not all come up. No sodium added does not mean no sodium in it. I was fooled. I went to the American Heart Associations site for a list of bottled waters with no sodium at all. There are not many. I’m also wondering why a PH of 9.5+ will do to a seedling. Don’t worry I’m using pole beans, radish and sunflower seeds for the test. Cheap and fast germinating. I ended the first experiment early when I had my results. I didn’t notice the Poland spring ones never came up until a few days.
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You are most likely correct. My well water is fine filtered or unfiltered for my vegetable garden. I want to help other people with city water who want to find something cheap that won’t kill their seedlings. Desani, Poland Spring and a few others are under suspicion. Seedlings need very little water. It’s an easy and cheap experiment. Let me explain it first.
Interesting subject.I’ve germinated beans with tap water and a little peroxide since Moby Dick was a minnow.Guess I’m just a bit old school.Lately I been feeling more like a fossil.Anyway looking forward to the final results.
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Objective: To find out how different brands of bottled water perform for germinating seeds.
Method: color coded solo cups will be filled with Pro-mix (Home Depot’s brand).
Two pole beans, two sunflower seeds and four radish seeds will be planted into each cup.
The blue cups will be watered with well water.
orange cups - Desani,
green cups- Life Water
purple cups - Evian
Yellow cups - distilled water
Red cups - Pelligrino (just for fun)
Red cup with blue tape - Blind sample (I’ll have to figure out how to not know)
The test will run for 14 days. If a cup of seeds has not sprouted by that time, the water is not good for germinating seeds.
I agree. Some people do. I want to see for myself if it’s good or bad. I’m like you. I like to keep it simple. I use clay/silt sand, worm dirt and dark sedge peat. That’s all you need. I don’t know why i added G Green, kelp and some Neptune junk. (snake oil) Absolutely no reason to use dirt from a bag. FF and OF. Why do people keep using that stuff? There are hundreds of videos on the Tube about burning seedlings and plants. I don’t get it.
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Thanks for the tag! very interested. Ive only ever used bottled spring water thus far. So be neat to see easiest effective way. I even skipped germinating last grow and direct planted but it didnt turn out ideal.
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Ok I’m all set up but I’m not going to start just yet. Is there a brand of water you would like me to try to find and test? I’m going to fetch some swamp water tomorrow just for kicks. Any other suggestions to make this experiment fun and informative are appreciated. I’ve only grown photos outside in a bucket of worm dirt. We just stuck seeds in the dirt, and someone would water it when they fed the chickens. If it came out decent, we smoked it. If not, we fed it to the goats. “worm dirt” is the dark sedge peat that worms come in when you buy a flat of 500 Canadian Night Crawlers. We buy 30 to 40 thousand in the spring. You have to get really stoned to count to 12 a couple hundred times a day. Garden Magic dark sedge Pete is the name on the bag. It’s from Michigan Peat. This is the bad part. Its $47 for 40 lb. bag on thier website. I’ve never seen it in stores, but I was never looking for it. The dealer we get it from buys pallets of the stuff every time he gets a worm delivery. He sells it to us for $9 a bag. I’m rambling again, good smokes everyone!
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I think it only matters if the seed likes it. One might not like tap, or ro. But, the girls will let you know. Unique ish.
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Tires ot the Bugatti cost $11,000, to balance and rotate and $110,000, every 10K miles (or Kilometers, I read), to replace.
My Apera 20 is seeet
My blue pen ($15.00) is reliable
My Vivosun died (design allowed bulb smashing, during uncontrolled spasm).
The replacement VS cost $40.00 wasted and takes 5 minutes to possibly arrive in the neighborhood the others are in. Probably jacuzzi shy, or dislikes water.
OBTW, our muscle cars in the 60’s had cool good tires.
My 280Z blew a tire at 140, cause the previous owner put cheap tires and I, the oblivious moron, didn’t learn tires, before that. i was the driver, not the mechanic. No fun changing a tire in -10F, and the dude that pulled me out of the snow bank was cool with my only cash, a $20.00 (1979).
You need reliable equipment., better when you can afford it. Life has taught me the value if spares.
I re-calibrate monthly with commercial fluid, specific to the number, i hope.
SWAG woeked in the '70, admittedly, not always, or well.
GGTY
Gotcha. I have 2 of everything and 3 of some other things when I take my boat offshore. All equipment is the best and most reliable that I can afford. My life and my passenger’s lives depend on me being prepared. It’s only a plant that if I kill, I’m out a few bucks. I get PH. I’ve seen that chart in one form or another. I appreciate the input but maybey this was a bad idea. Peace.
Just truyng to share. Good Growing to you.
Learning is cool. the expense is the cost.
I just use tap water to germinate. Used to use a shot glass with peroxide and water but it germinated them so fast that they’d jump completely out of their shell before I could check on them again. Now I just use a damp paper towel.
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