Pre-sprouting your seeds before you put them into dirt can be beneficial for finding the seeds in your stash that still have some life in them. This is especially helpful for seeds that are older than a year or so. Here’s how you can germinate seeds on a paper towel!
This post may contain affiliate links. I earn a small commission for these links. Thank you!
Back in 2018, I was in my “Cut Flower Garden” era. My vision was a “rainbow cut flower garden”. I purchased an obscene amount of seeds…. grew my garden… and then that era ended and those seeds sat in a plastic container for a few years.
I decided to pull some of those old seeds out to use for pollinating flowers in my vegetable garden this year. The only problem was – I didn’t want to waste tons of seed starting soil, resources, or time with the seeds that were no longer good.
This is what I stored my seeds back in in 2018. Now that I’m {cough cough} older and wiser… I will not be storing my seeds like this in the future. It worked great, kept things organized, and was super cute.. but I will stop being *extra* and just stick with either mason jars or paper envelopes from now on.
These poor seeds were stored for SO LONG in a variety of different environments – storage facilities… cold garages… HOT garages… outside… I obviously didn’t take care of them well.
::sigh::
Because of this, I wanted to germinate seeds on a paper towel to see which ones were still viable. It turns out – not many were, so I’m glad I used this method.
First – Set up your space and Prepare
I suggest setting up your space before you even get started.
Materials you need to germinate seeds on a paper towel:
- Paper Towels
- Spray Bottle filled with water (Any kind will do – here’s a quick link to one on Amazon)
- Sandwich Baggies
- Permanent Marker
- Seeds (old or new!)
- Tweezers (optional for setup but can be useful)
- Painter’s Tape
- Caffeine (because you’ll be at it for a while) 😉
Here are a few things to think about before you begin:
- Have a plan for your materials and where you’re going to put the seeds once you prep them.
- Do some research on your seeds to determine if they need light to germinate or if they need darkness.
- Pre-label your baggies. Once you get going, your hands will be wet and it may make labeling more challenging.
Peep that nice house shoe down there in this picture. Make sure you’re comfortable. Comfort is always key.
Next – Dampen your paper towels and place your seeds
- Lay your paper towel on your work space.
- Dampen it with your spray bottle.
- Place your seeds on the paper towel. I like to do little columns and rows… but I’ve also done this method with kind of just throwing all of the seeds on there quickly and moving forward.
- Fold your paper towel and put it in your labeled bag.
- As you close the bag, blow a little air into it to make it puff up. I’ve seen some people use a straw to do this… but I just put my mouth right on the bag. Gross? 🤷🏼♀️ Whatevs.
- This gives it more of a greenhouse effect.
Next – Put them away and let them germinate!
Determine which seeds need light and which do not. The ones that do not need light, I suggest putting them somewhere dark and relatively warm. I put mine in a cardboard box and set it on my dryer!
I suggest taping the seeds that need light to a window that gets relatively good sunshine throughout the day. Putting it on a sunny window also makes it easier to see if the seeds have sprouted!
What do seeds look like when they’ve germinated?
This is a picture of one of my paper towels that had germinated seeds. These are actually bell pepper seeds that I saved from a grocery store pepper! I was curious how the germination rate would be in one that had been purchased from the store (vs. the seeds dried out and stored first).
Surprisingly, out of all the pepper seeds I’ve started this season, the grocery store pepper has been my fastest growing and strongest pepper plant. I’ll have to give an update once the season is over on how the peppers turned out! YAY for experiments!
Finally, Plant your sprouted seeds!
After you germinate seeds on a paper towel, you can gently extract them from the paper towel (with tweezers) and put them in a seed starting soil mix. You can see all of my preferences for seed starting here.
I ended up putting my planted germinated seeds right outside with my other seedlings. They all have thrived! I live in zone 8, so we get relatively warm temperatures quickly. If you live in a colder zone and have a grow light situation, I would suggest putting them there until it’s warm enough to put them outside.
I hope this has been helpful! I found that to germinate seeds on a paper towel is extremely satisfying – and it really eliminates failed attempts at starting the seeds directly in the soil.
Posts that also might interest you…
- DIY Mini Greenhouse
- Sidewalk Chalk Mosaic tutorial
- 2023 Book Recommendation List
- How to make a T-Shirt Quilt Tutorial
