The seed stage is by far the most delicate one in a plant’s life cycle. Of all the conditions you need for germination, the amount of water you use is one of the most important things to get right. Therefore, overwatering your seeds while they’re at this stage could be the end of a short life for them.
Overwatering your seed will cause rot. Seeds need very little moisture to germinate, and when they are exposed to too much of it, they will not grow and can start to experience problems. Rot is the biggest issue, but others like mold, algae, and fungi can be just as bad.
Overwatering is a problem many gardeners face, so there’s no need to feel bad if you can’t get the hang of watering your garden. If you’d like to learn more about overwatering seeds and how to do it properly, then this guide is for you.
Can a Seed Recover From Overwatering?
Overwatering is a serious problem. While you can reverse it with relative ease with grown plants, seeds are at a delicate point in their life cycle. Everything needs to be just right if you want them to grow. If you’ve overwatered your seeds, you might be here because you’re wondering just how bad the damage is.
Seeds can recover from overwatering. Overwatering is a bad prognosis but not a death sentence. Usually, you can fix overwatering by removing the seed from the excess water. However, if things like rot and mold have already set in, it might be too late to save it.
If you’re here because you’ve overwatered your seed, then the good news is that you can fix it, provided it’s not too late. Reversing the problem is usually easy as all you have to do is take it out of the wet environment, dry it with a cloth and replant it somewhere drier using proper methods.
However, if you’re not sure what’s the proper method, you might find the next section particularly useful.
How to Water Your Seeds Properly
Although watering is not all your seeds need to germinate properly and maintain good health, it is one of the most essential factors. Besides, managing watering well will do you a world of good. That said, the right watering practice is more than the actual watering.
Since watering essentially introduces moisture to the soil for the seed’s use, watering the right way also combines everything you have to do to maintain the soil moisture at optimal levels.
Choose the Right Location
Before you even start thinking of watering, the first and most important thing to decide is where you want to start your seeds. There are two options to choose from: indoors and outdoors.
Both have benefits and disadvantages, but the best option to go with is indoors for most people. Starting your seeds indoors comes with many benefits that make it suited to beginners and veterans alike.
The most striking benefit is the ability to control surrounding conditions incredibly well. Starting your seeds outdoors is fine, but doing so comes with accepting the fact that some things will simply be out of your control.
Controlling temperature, humidity, lighting, and various other related factors fly out the window almost immediately once you choose to start your seeds outdoors. On the other hand, growing your plants indoors allows you to control the conditions almost precisely.
Growing plants indoors also comes with the added benefit of starting your seeds early in the season. If you’re a little earlier than the beginning of the season, starting your seeds indoors can give you a head start.
The best thing about starting the seeds indoors is that you can transplant them once the season is underway or if you change your mind and decide to continue outdoors.
However, not all plants can be transplanted, and you should factor this in your decision.
Choose the Right Soil
The type of soil can be almost as crucial as the amount of water you use. You can spend a lot of time taking care of the seedlings and limiting the amount of water you use. However, if you don’t use the right soil, the water can either go straight through or stay put for too long.
Water Retention
This soil’s capacity to hold water is called water retention and is unique to different types of soil. Listing every type of soil and its water holding capacity would take far too long, but a good rule of thumb to follow is that tighter soils usually hold water better than loose ones.
For example, clay has extremely high water retention, and as a result, a little water can go a long way. On the other hand, looser soils are a lot more granular, and because of the amount of space between them in comparison to tighter soils, water goes through them significantly faster.
It might seem like the soil that holds water best is the better option. However, soils with high water retention can be counterproductive when it comes to growing plants.
Although seeds and plants alike need water to thrive, tight soils will usually hold a lot more water than your seed needs. Because of this, planting your seeds in this type of soil could give you results similar to overwatering, even if you use little water.
Looser soils like sand have the opposite problem. Since water goes through them rather quickly, seeds and plants cannot access the water for long. Because of this, they can quickly show signs of underwatering.
The Best Soil Choice
In a pinch, the loose soil is the better option. Although water goes through it a lot quicker, it’s easier to manage the water level. However, you might have to water it more frequently.
Optimally, the best type of soil to use is something in the middle. The most appropriate example is loam, which toes this middle line well because it holds a mixture of the different types of soils (40% sand, 40% silt, 20% clay). You can make a DIY potting mix or buy it premade from a local gardening store or online.
Place Your Seeds at the Right Depth
Once your soil is sorted, depth and spacing are the next most important. As unrelated as it might seem, the depth at which you plant your seeds and how well spaced out they are is a big determinant of how much water they’ll need.
Different seeds need to be planted at different depths to account for the correct amount of light and moisture. That said, if you plant your seed too deep, it might not get the proper amount of light it needs, and water might not penetrate deep enough to reach it.
On the other hand, if your seed is too close to the surface, it will be more susceptible to constant fluctuations in temperature and moisture.
Most seeds have depth directions on the packaging. However, if yours doesn’t, or you happen to source your own seeds, you can still follow the general rule.
The rule of thumb when planting seeds is to place them at a depth two times its width. For example, if your seed is 0.25 inches (0.635 cm) wide, you need to place it 0.5 inches (1.27 cm) deep.
Once the depth is sorted, the spacing between multiple seeds is also important. If you have one pot for each plant, then this is not something you’ll need to worry about. However, if you have multiple seeds like in a grow bed, or you are planting in the soil outdoors, you’ll need to space the seeds out properly.
Water Your Seed Frequently
The final step entails the actual watering. As much as seeds need water to grow properly, they don’t need that much at a time.
Watering your seeds is a delicate process. You only need enough moisture to dampen the soil, not wet it. Essentially, you want soil that is damp enough to stick to your hand, not for it to get muddy.
The crucial thing here is to keep the soil in this condition constantly. That means you’ll have to monitor your soil at different times during the day to make sure it doesn’t dry out.
Since the soil’s moisture content depends on multiple factors like soil retention, temperature, and humidity, stating a specific amount of time within which your soil will remain moist is almost impossible. This is because it will be unique to your situation.
Once you can maintain this condition for a few days, you should begin to notice a couple of new shoots as the seeds germinate. From this point, it’s a matter of maintenance.
If you’d like to learn about maintaining your indoor and outdoor plants, then I have a separate guide that goes into details about it.
Conclusion
Watering your seed correctly is one of the most important things to do for healthy and timely germination. Overwatering can cause problems like mold, rot, and fungal growth. Underwatering is equally bad and causes your seed to dry out pretty quickly, leaving it useless.
Proper watering is essential to avoid these problems. Additionally, a combination of good soil, ideal planting depth, and frequent watering to keep the soil moist are all vital for vigorous plant growth.
