What could these fantastic green pearls possibly be?
Nope, not candy.
Not rocks.
Not bathroom-cooked drugs.
What kind of person do you take me for?
These are seeds!
Not just any seeds... magic seeds.
Today, these seeds came in the mail. They didn't cost me a cow, but probably did cost me the milk money.
These seeds are supposed to grow beautiful tobacco flowers (nicotiana), like those pictured here. I picked this flower because I thought it might be a helpful companion plant in the garden. It attracts pollinators, beneficial insects, has sticky leaves to trap aphids, and it can be turned into a natural insecticide as I learned from 
So why are they green?
Here's my theory, because I have never had seeds that look like this before.
The product description on the purchase page says the seed pack contains "50 pelleted seeds". The seed pellets were placed inside of this plastic case to protect the seeds so they don't get crushed in mail. The green coating is clearly magical.
Do you know what else is green?
Nitrogen Fertilizer.
Nitrogen is the primary nutrient required for plant growth.
It's what makes plants super green.
Even though Nitrogen exists in the air, plants can only absorb it when it is in a liquid form. In nature, compost, mushrooms, rotten fruit, worm castings, and animal droppings leach out this nutrient in liquid form when the rain falls onto the soil. The clay in the soil absorbs the liquid nutrients. Roots grow through the clay and absorb the liquid containing the nitrogen fertilizer. Nature has a brilliant system worked out!
I think these seed I bought are coated in a special nitrogen fertilizer coating to slowly release nutrients to the plant as it grows.
More importantly, I think the seed pellet coating acts as a protecting shell around the fragile seeds. Often times annuals (plants that die off completely after they spread their seeds) make seeds that are only viable for a short while. If the seed does not get sown into the protective clay soil immediately, it deteriorates into compost material. I think this green shell acts as a protective mud/clay coating to protect the seed from rotting, cracking, drying out, and to preserve it for a longer shelf life inside the plastic container. As soon as I apply water to these seed pellets, I think the coating will probably slowly dissolve, and allow the seed to access the moist soil so it can germinate.
I decided to plant just the perfume variety tonight, because I was so enamored by having these new seed pellets for the first time.
The directions on the seed pouch says to lay the seeds directly on top of the soil, so that is what I did. Definitely no pre-soaking of the seeds. All I had to do was make sure my soil was wet, and spritz with some water on top. The soil I used is some old junk medium from last winter where I was trying to root some twigs, but it didn't work, so that is why you might see twigs sticking out of the cup. Hopefully this soil is sterile, but I wouldn't count on it. Let's find out how easy it is to grow flowers in some old junk soil.
I planted four seeds in this cup. The pouch says I could get flowers that are "bright rose, red, antique lime, deep purple, blue, lime, and white." It is impossible to know which colors I will get from these seeds. Will they become all variety of colors on one plant, or will each seed produce a plant that produces a single color of flowers?
Let me know what you think in the comments below. Call me Seymour Krelborn, because I am starting to love growing strange and unusual plants.
