When I started to plant a garden here in Greece, about 3 years ago, I learned of this Cretan Stamnagathi and it's health benefits. I bought some seeds to try to grow my own, but had no success.

I purchased again, two packages of seeds which were delivered to me late November or early December 2024. I decided to try two different methods to germinate the seeds in one of the packages:

1. I placed one of each "seed" into 4 seed pots filled with high quality tray substrate soil and kept moist, but not wet. The seeds were planted shallow - basically placed the seeds on top and then slightly covered them with more soil.

2. The remainder of the seeds I decided to try to germinate inside a baggy with a zip lock on moistened Wettex. What I learned from this was very interesting.

First, all the seeds in the pots germinated - but the seeds in the baggy with moist Wettex germinated faster.

But what I also learned is that what I thought were the "seeds" is actually sort of a husk that surrounds 4 seeds. I discovered this when I noted that some of the "seeds" (or what I thought were seeds) had 2 to 4 roots germinating. I also noticed later that with some of the "seeds," smaller black seeds had emerged, and from those, each a germinating root.

So, with some seeds of the second package, I removed the outer covering of what many will probably assume is a single seed, and indeed, within each one, I could find 4 tiny black seeds.

This information might be helpful to others who have had difficulty germinating stamnagathi.

For the germinated seeds on the Wettex, I simply took a pair of tweezers and placed each germinated seed on top of tray substrate soil in a seed pot then sprinkled a little more soil lightly on top.

I kept them moist (not wet) and am very pleased with the germination rate I am seeing.

Another thing is that one needs much patience. I started my experiment on December 8th. Some "seeds" germinated in about 10 days, while others are still just germinating now, almost a month later.

Temperature may also be a factor: The first time I tried to germinate Stamnagathi seeds was in the heat of the summer. These ones that are germinating are germinating in average temperature of about 13C so perhaps they like the cool more than the warm.

To sum things up, I am very pleased at this point with these seeds that Green Center sent me that with a bit of experimentation and observation, seem to have a high rate of germination although some of them can be very slow which is fine.