For many, the summer means a different kind of work — gardening. Whether you have twenty acres of lush meadow, a rooftop oasis in the city or a few potted plants on a balcony, when it gets hot outside it’s time to get planting.

In the TED-Ed lesson above, Mary Koga explains the science behind a seed’s germination and shares how we can give nature a boost. Spray your seeds in bleach, poke holes in them, file them with sandpaper; these are all techniques Koga says can help us if we ever need to survive a cataclysm, start a farm or just grow our own vegetables.

Watch the lesson, and then check out these talks from green-fingered TED speakers.

• Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA
• Stephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx
• Britta Riley: A garden in my apartment