Instructions

1. I recommend Burpee’s Seed Starting Mix as the best sowing medium for germinating African violet seeds and growing the seedlings to transplant stage. It is a coir-based mix sold loose in bags or compressed into dry bricks and is available at big box stores. It is a sowing medium that AV seeds love. However, most mixes used for growing African violets will germinate the seeds adequately. I recommend against using a home made mix.                                            
2. Shown here is germination mix and several containers. To the dry mix, add enough tap water to uniformly moisten it. It should feel moist but not wet. A 1-cup amount of mix requires around 5 - 6 tablespoons of water. Use enough mix to provide a layer that is at least ½ inch thick in your container. Put the moist mix in the container and flatten the surface gently with a spoon. Now you are ready for sowing!

The seedlings begin to show at the 14th day after sowing as tiny green specks on the surface of the mix. At cool temperatures it takes longer for the specks to appear. They don’t all show at the same time. Most, but not all, of the seeds will have germinated by the four weeks after sowing. The seedlings shown at left were photographed at five weeks after sowing. Growth is rather slow at the beginning but accelerates later on. Patience.

The seedlings can be transplanted at various stages of growth. In this example, the pot in the left-most photo shows seedlings at eleven weeks after sowing, which is a good transplanting stage. Those seedlings were removed as a whole, then teased apart. The 32 largest ones were selected for transplanting to 32 2.5 inch square pots, which evenly fit in a 10×20-inch tray. Seedlings can be transplanted when smaller or even when much large than those shown here.