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Before you blame the weather, the soil or the depth, look at the date on the packet. Saltwort seed has one of the shortest useful lives of anything you will sow in a vegetable garden. Seed from the current season germinates well. Seed a year old germinates poorly and unevenly. Seed two years old is close to worthless, and no amount of warmth, soaking or patience will bring it back.
This single fact explains most of the failures people report with this crop. A packet bought two seasons ago, kept in a shed through a warm summer, will give you a scatter of three or four seedlings from a row that should have produced two hundred, and everything else you did was fine. Treat the seed as a perishable item, not as something to keep in a tin with the beans and the squash.
The practical response is to buy or save seed each season, sow the whole packet rather than saving half of it, and test anything you are unsure about before you commit a row to it. Twenty seeds on damp kitchen paper in a closed box at around 68F (20C) will tell you in ten days what you are working with, which is far better than losing three weeks of the season to an empty bed.
| Seed age | Typical germination | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Harvested or packed this season | Seventy to ninety percent | Sow at the normal rate and thin later |
| One year old, stored cool and dry | Thirty to fifty percent | Sow at roughly double the rate |
| Two years old | Under ten percent | Do not plan a row around it, buy fresh |
| Three years or older | Effectively none | Throw it away, it will only waste a bed |
| Any age, stored warm or damp | Far below the figures above | Assume the worst and test it on paper first |
If you must keep seed over a winter, put it in an airtight jar in the fridge with a sachet of silica gel. That slows the decline but does not stop it, so still sow it the following season rather than the one after.
Depth, spacing and the seedbed
Saltwort is direct sown. It resents root disturbance and grows so fast once it is up that raising it in modules buys you almost nothing. Sow where it is going to grow, in a firm bed rather than a fluffy one, because the seed is small and needs close contact with damp soil to take up water.
Sow shallow. A quarter to a half inch (5 to 10 mm) is right, and the commonest mistake after old seed is burying it an inch down where it exhausts itself before reaching the light. On a light sandy soil, sow at the deeper end of that range and firm the surface afterwards; on a heavy soil, sow shallower and cover with sieved compost or sand rather than lumps of clay that will cap in the first heavy rain.
Sow in rows rather than broadcasting. Rows six to eight inches (15 to 20 cm) apart let you tell the seedlings from the weeds in the first fortnight, which matters because the young plants are thin and thread-like and look like nothing much for the first ten days. Sow thickly along the row, at roughly one seed every half inch (12 mm), and thin later. Given the germination rate you are dealing with, thick sowing is insurance, not waste.
- Firm the bed before you sow Rake it level, then walk it down or press it with the back of the rake. A loose, freshly dug surface dries out in a day and the seed sits in air instead of in contact with damp soil.
- Draw a shallow drill Make a straight furrow a quarter to a half inch (5 to 10 mm) deep with the corner of a hoe or a cane. Water the bottom of the drill before sowing if the soil is dry, rather than watering over the top afterwards.
- Sow thickly along the row About one seed every half inch (12 mm). With seed of uncertain age this is the difference between a full row and a scatter. Thinning surplus seedlings is easy; filling gaps three weeks later is not.
- Cover lightly and firm Draw the soil back over the drill and press it down with the flat of your hand or the back of the rake. Sieved compost or sharp sand works better than clods on heavy ground.
- Keep the surface damp until it is up A fine spray daily in dry weather, or a sheet of hessian or row cover laid flat on the bed and removed the moment green shows. The seedbed must not dry out between sowing and emergence.
Temperature, timing and successions
Germination wants moderate warmth, not heat. The seed moves at soil temperatures from about 59F (15C) upward, is fastest between 68 and 77F (20 and 25C), and takes five to ten days in that range. Below 54F (12C) it is slow and patchy, and a cold snap after sowing usually means the seed sits and rots rather than waiting politely for better weather.
So the sowing window opens once the soil has genuinely warmed in spring, not on the first mild day. Push a finger into the bed in the morning: if it feels cold rather than cool, wait another week. Sowing a fortnight later into warm soil catches up with, and usually overtakes, a sowing made too early into cold ground.
Because the plant is only worth picking for a few weeks before it turns wiry, successions matter more here than with most leafy crops. Sow a short row every two to three weeks from late spring through midsummer. Each row hits its best picking about four to six weeks after sowing, so three staggered rows give you tender shoots across most of the summer instead of a fortnight of glut followed by nothing.
| Condition | Target | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Soil temperature at sowing | Above 59F (15C), ideally 68 to 77F (20 to 25C) | Below that the seed is slow, uneven and prone to rotting |
| Sowing depth | A quarter to a half inch (5 to 10 mm) | Deeper and the small seed runs out of reserve before it reaches light |
| Days to emergence | Five to ten in warm soil | Nothing by day fourteen means the seed was too old, not too slow |
| Row spacing | Six to eight inches (15 to 20 cm) | Wide enough to hoe and to tell seedlings from weeds |
| Final spacing after thinning | Three to four inches (8 to 10 cm) in the row | Crowded plants run up thin and flower earlier |
| Interval between successions | Two to three weeks | Keeps tender shoots coming instead of one short glut |
Nothing showing after two weeks in warm, damp soil is a seed problem, not a technique problem. Do not keep waiting and do not resow from the same packet. Get fresh seed and sow the row again.
Thinning, and what to write down
Thin as soon as the seedlings have their first true leaves and you can see which ones are strong. Take the row down to three or four inches (8 to 10 cm) between plants. That looks brutally wide for something so thin, but each plant branches into a low bush and needs the room, and crowded plants stretch, go pale and run to flower far sooner.
Thin by snipping rather than pulling. The roots of neighboring seedlings are tangled together at this stage and pulling one lifts three. Scissors at soil level leave the plants you want undisturbed, and the thinnings themselves are edible, so nothing is lost.
Keep a note of two things at this stage: the date you sowed each row, and how many days passed before the seedlings appeared. Do that for two seasons and you will know exactly which sowing dates are safe on your ground, and you will have a clear record of which seed sources actually germinate. Add the age of the seed you used, because that is the single number that explains most good and bad results with this crop.
- Thin at the first true leaves Wait until the seedlings are an inch or so (3 cm) tall and clearly established, then take the row down to a plant every three to four inches (8 to 10 cm).
- Snip, do not pull Cut unwanted seedlings off at soil level with small scissors. Pulling disturbs the tangled roots of the seedlings you are keeping and checks them for a week.
- Eat the thinnings Even at an inch or two tall the shoots are tender and mildly saline. They are the first picking of the crop, not a waste product.
- Hoe between the rows early Saltwort seedlings are thin and easily smothered. One careful hoeing between the rows in the first fortnight is worth three later, when the plants have spread and you cannot get a blade between them.
- Record sowing date, days to emergence and seed age Three short notes per row. Together they tell you next season which sowing window works on your soil and which seed is worth buying again.