How to Soak Seeds Yourself at Home: A Guide to Soaking for Fast Germination

When you soak seeds, you allow water to fully penetrate the hull of the seed, nourishing the germ that will bloom into a plant. Seeds will get food from the nutrients in the soil surrounding them once they are planted, but to flourish they need plenty of water. It can be difficult for seeds to take on adequate water once they are planted, because soil can wick moisture away from the seeds before the water fully penetrates the seed. Soaking seeds nips this problem in the bud, as it were, by offering your seeds as much water as the seeds can use and store. Read on to learn the facts about why and how soaking seeds helps speed germination, and learn how to soak seeds for professional gardening results.

Why Soaking Seeds Works

The short answer to why soaking seeds makes your seed sprout faster is that it fools your seed into thinking that it has been planted for longer. When you soak seeds, they take on the same amount of water in just a single day of soaking that would take the seeds up to a week to absorb if they were planted. Soaking seeds speeds up seed germination by making sure that your seeds get their thirst fully quenched before they are submerged in the ground. When they are fully soaked, the seeds behave as thought they've already been planted for days, or even weeks, before you have even put them in your garden. This radically shortens the overall timetable for seed germination.

How To Soak Seeds