Soil Temperature and Germination

I planted spinach and chard five weeks ago. They did not come up. I planted spinach chard and cabbage three weeks ago. They did not come up. I planted spinach, chard, onions and kale Saturday. Yesterday only the onions had not come up. The cabbage from three weeks ago is coming up. I used the same type of seed for the spinach and chard each time. The important variable is probably soil temperature.

Since the 5 week and 3 week seeds have still not come up, I will report the other variable. The seeds planted Saturday were in a raised bed and the soil temperature should be more sensitive to changes in air temperature. Here is a web page that list optimal soil temperatures for different seeds. http://tomclothier.hort.net/page11.html . This tells us that the Cabbage can germinate at a higher temperature than the Spinach. When I looked carefully at the beds last night, I also realized that the arugula and radishes had germinated. The mesclun mix had not.

That could be because of the lettuce requiring a lower temperature.
The really good news is that the arugula is almost ready to be picked. That means we can have a salad with peppers, tomatoes, arugula, radishes and cucumber all from the garden. How rare is that?

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/