I'm a newbe too. When I tried to germinate my seeds, only one cracked open. I put that into the soil immediately. I thought the other seeds were bad, but I put them in the soil to anyway. I didn't try to crack them open by hand, since I was afraid they would get hurt by such treatment. After a few days, all of them had start to grow. The only thing I did after putting them in the soil, was to sprinkle the soil with water. They need moisture, but they should not drown. After all, in nature, seeds start their life in the soil, nobody is there to germinate them in paper towels, so it isn't strange that they will grov. I didn't poke around in the soil to see what was happening. I just waited. Now everything is growing fine.