seed starting mix

I would be careful about fertilizing the seedlings before they have a couple of sets of "true leaves". Also do you have a fan for air circulation, this wards off a common fungal disease of seedlings called Damping Off where seedlings fall over and die. I have absolutely no problems with seed starting mix, I use Promix, and have approx. 300-400 healthy plants I started in and am growing on in Promix seed starting mix. Try waiting to fert. and adding some air circulation, still lots of time to start over, for annuals anyhow, good luck! Janet

Well Andrea, I'm beginning to feel the same way. My frustration is that the seed starting mix has things in it that seem to be a great place for "mold starting." My solution has been to keep the cover on the flats to keep the humidity in during daylight hours, but put the fan on in the evening. I even tried some cinnamon which seems to work. Most of my flats have sprouted except for candytuft which seems to have more fuzz than anything. Trying to scrape it all off and keep the moisture balanced. Next to my "intensive care" flats I sowed some seed in plain old topsoil in a potted plant, with NO cover, NO added humidity and that seed looks better. Go figure. Hope yours pull through.
Peace,
George

I make my own mix using 2 parts peat moss and 1 part perlite. I agree with janet about air circulation. I had a problem with damping off until I learned it's not necessary to use so much water. After the seed pops, let it dry out a little before you do anything to it.

To check the development of mold and to avoid damping off use a mild solution of chamomile tea. It works!

Susan

i must have given the wrong impression. the seedlings don't die. they just don't grow until i transplant them into a different growing medium, such as potting soil or directly into the ground. then they take off and grow grow grow.

am i being impatient? for instance..i have 48 seedlings in seed starting mix...some petunias, salvia, shasta daisies, coleus, butterfly weed, impatiens...i planted them six weeks ago..they all sprouted within a few days...got one set of true leaves, and there they are...doing nothing...not another set of leaves...they aren't getting spindly..they just aren't growing!!!

i should add..this has happened to me year after year.

~a

Humm, I have no problems growing on in soiless mix if I don't have time to transplant to other medium or containers.
You say you have good light. Are you using artifical light or sunlight from windows or greenhouse? Is the light source close to the seedlings?
Good heat is also tough to define is that ambient temp or the soil temp? Do you use heat mats?
I just looked up my records and sowed impatiens 2/11/07 in soiless mix and have had enough true leaves I am taking pinched cuttings for the past 2 weeks to start more. I just transplanted to a potting soil mix.
Sure sound like your seedlings are too cool, and stretching for light.

I guess I skip a step when I start mine. I fill the seed containers 3/4 or more(depending on type of seeds) with an all purpose potting soil. Then I top off with seed starting mix. This has worked well for me as some of my annual flowers stay in their containers till I plant them outside.

Dear Cityboygonecountry- you are smart, you are mixing spagnum moss with perlite to make your own seed starting mix. I would not recommend any comercial product which does not list its ingedients because vermiculite is a questionably UNHEALTHY product.

Vermiculite is a fine mineral crystals which blow around in the air. The type which was mined at the Libby Mine Montana is laced with a dangerous asbestos. True they are no longer mining because the whole town got ill!! Vermiculite in garden products should be identified clearly as not coming from Libby. Furthermore, any product containing vermiculite should advise the user to wet it down and use a mask if it blows around.

Reason I say this is I am a nurse:There are many asbestos types and vermiculites but the dangerous one is fine inert crystals fly into the air and get breathed into the lungs. The fibers have fishhook type hooks and they lodge in the lungs. There is continual scaring of the lung over years until the scaring results in stiff lung- cannot breathe in and out- it is a lethal lung disease eventually. All this occurs over many years. You cannot figure out which company did or did not do it.

I am going back to K Mart with Jiffy seed starter because it did not say what was in the bag - only that in California and Georgia it contains about 50% Vermiculite. Only 10% is recommended.

We need more responsible labeling what is in the product and cautions how to use the product such as use a mask, wear gloves, well areated area, do not allow children to get near the dust of vermiculite.

Sincerely Gudrun Scott RN , countrygirl1

Dear Andrea,

I have exactly the same problem - commercial "seed starting mix" from a nursery or DIY superstore also seems to be useless. The plants always stall at the 4-true leaf stage, no matter which mix I use. I can't tell you exactly how to fix it, just what I am trying. I am not using any manure or bark in the soil mix and I am lightly fertilizing with weak fish emulsion about a week after germination.

Here is the mix I just started using for my primarily drought loving plants (from grower at Theodore Payne nursery):
3 parts perlite
1 part coco fiber or cocoa hulls
1/2 part washed sand
About 1 tblspn of a slow release pellet fertilizer
"Our seeds are primarily sown into flats, so we make two mixes. One with fertilizer and one without. Two one gallons of soil mix with fertilizer are spread into the flat first and tamped down, then the mix without fertilizer is added on top of that. The size of the seed determines how deep they are planted or how much of the non-fertilized mix you add. The reason the fertilized mix is on the bottom of the flat is so when the seeds germinate and start to put down roots, they will hit the fertilized soil and have nutrition.

When to water after germination just depends. Usually every couple of days is enough unless the weather starts to really warm up, then every day. I physically check the flats by lifting one side to see how heavy it is. This gives you an idea of what the existing moisture content
is like."

I hope this is helpful.

Hi Andrea-

You are not alone! I've been starting seed indoors for years, and have had good years and bad years, but this is my worst by far. There are only 2 things I know are different - I used a seed germination mix for the first time, Jiffy mix, and our house temperatures were cooler (but I do use heating mats). I didn't get damping off, but the seedlings stopped growing. Some of them acted as though I applied a herbicide - the outer leaves dried up and eventually died, and with some only the growing points were alive. What I think is interesting is that I'm caring for some seedlings in a greenhouse - not mine (ideal conditions of course), but these were sown in a mixture composed of fine composted manure, perlite and peat moss. There was a little bit of damping off, but other than that, I've NEVER seen such robust seedlings. So next year, IF I sow indoors again, maybe I'll try Pro-mix PGX, or maybe I'll try Dicots suggestion with weak fish emulsion.

Maybe it's the Jiffy Mix. I started out with Ferry Morse starting mix and then bought the Jiffy. The plants in the Jiffy mix germinated fine but stalled. The Ferry Morse plants grew on normally and are now 4 times bigger than the others even though they were only started a week apart. I won't be using the Jiffy Mix again. I've been taking the little guys out to the porch every day for a little light and fresh air and feeding very weak fish emulsion and they are looking better.

Hey, I have the same issue with Jiffy Mix. My seedlings weren't growing much either until I potted them up into 4" pots with a potting soil and put them outside (I bring them in on cold nights).

I really don't know if the problem is that my lights aren't bright enough, if the room is too cool, or if it's the Jiffy Mix. My lights are a double-tube 4' fluorescent fixture suspended over two flats positioned end to end. The lights are kept a few inches above the plant tops. I do notice that the plants in the middle of the flats do better because they're closer to the lights. Does that sound like enough light?

Regarding the heat, I grow them in my basement and use a heating pad during germination but remove the heat after that. They're by a south window, so it does heat up more in mid-day.

Maybe my problem is all three issues, but I'm wondering now if it was the Jiffy mix.

I came to this forum to post about the same problem! I have been using Jiffy Mix and the seedlings just sit there. This spring we bought a soil warming cable and set our flats in a wooden frame filled with aged mulch, looks like black dirt. Weed seeds sprouted in the mulch and were 10-15 times larger than my seedlings. I also planted some marigold seeds outside the Jiffy Mix, in the mulch the same time I planted the seeds in the Jiffy Mix. The seedlings in the mulch are 6 inches tall with several leaves. The marigold seedlings in the Jiffy Mix are 1 inch or less with 1 true leaf. I have been feeding the seedlings. These are all in a small greenhouse with plenty of light and good air circulation.

NOTE: This is purely personal observation and you results may vary...

Earlier this year I grew a crop of oyster mushrooms and I had really miscalculated how much substrate I needed and subsequently had a lot of leftovers...and since I had already gone through the trouble to pasteurize it I figured I'd used it as my potting / seedling mix for my plants and flowers this year.

My 2" cutting of a swedish ivy which I obtained in March is now over 24" long and is already begging to be divided again. As silly as I sounds, i think I'm going to use the same concoction for all my seeding and growth mixes from now on...

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50% Jiffy Mix (peat moss, pH balanced with lime, perlite)
25% Coco Coir
25% Vermiculite
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Pasteurization in this regard is nothing more than mixing all the ingredients together (easier when they're already hydrated to field capacity because they're all rather hydrophilic) and then pouring them into a big, huge cooler. Make sure to clear this with your DH - or in my case, my WIW ;-p - and then pour in enough almost boiling water and close the lid for 45 minutes and then stir and repeat with another batch of water.

The idea is to get the mixture up to 140-160 for about an hour without it getting hotter. The reason you don't use boiling water is because at 212 degrees you're killing also killing off all the beneficial bacteria in the mixture that is good for your plants - and mushrooms, in my case.

I also throw in a pot of coffee (and it's grounds) for the nitrogen boosters, but that's just me...

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I told you it was crazy, but it works like a charm for me. <shrug>

I'm also frustrated by this: Jiffy or any other "seed starting mix". I'm a good gardener but I've never had much luck with seeds. I need a lot of Impatiens for a shade garden so I planted four packs of seeds in each flat, in straight rows. After germination, (which was very sparse), before any true leaves, time went by with no growth, Like the other posts here, I eventually started to get mold, but it was getting warm so I took off the covers and put them outdoors during the day. This, too, did nothing, except that chipmunks tore the contents of one flat completely apart.

My quesion now is, should I try planting Imapatiens seeds directly in the garden? The weeds are now coming up - new ones every few days, so I'd have to let them grow or else I'd kill any seedlings that sprout. A dilemma.

Any suggestions?

Hi,

Jiffy Mix is horrible if I remember right. I used it last year and it was like concrete and the containers I used it for never sprouted anything. I had used something else in other containers and those all worked out fine.

Jiffy mix is nothing more than Peat Moss & Perlite with some hydrated lime to balance the pH to a neutral 7.0. It makes a great topdressing for (some) mushroom substrates because of it's total lack of nutrients...

It also has a bad habit of being infected with all types of trich and cobweb mold spores out of the bag and (if used for mushrooms) needs to be pasteurized first to destroy them.

For seeding, mixing in a little coco-coir and coffee grounds really seems to give it what it needs...but as always your results may vary.

heya,

i've also been wondering about this. usually, i mix my own soil of about 3 parts humus-y soil, 1 part peat moss and 1/2 part vermiculite (i've read about its connection with asbestos.. but they are chunky compared to the perlite which i accidentally breath in everytime i open the tupperware, and that freaks me out!). then i line the bottom of the pot with coconut fibres.

germination is not a problem with herbs and flowering plants. and true leaves also.

i've tried using a horti 'soil-less' starter mix, and they germinated at a slightly slower rate as my own mixture, with pretty much the same effect. so to save costs, i just continue using my own.

after i transplant them to bigger spaces so they are not crowded together anymore (using the same mixture, except i increase the amount of soil and lower down the amount of peat moss and vermiculite), most either grow painfully slowly or start to get leggy. not sure what the problem is.

but my balsams are growing wonderfully strong, and also a flower box of celosia which is growing like crazy and starting to look like a proper plant.

it's put in the same place (windowsill) as another flower box of celosia that isn't getting past the first true leaf stage, with the same soil mixture. so i really can't put my finger on it.

i've tried using starter solutions after transplanting, and they just accelerated the dying process. so i've stopped putting in any kinds of fertilizers or chems. is this the problem?

Here is a link that might be useful: my blog on the seedling process