slowly dying from my own success..hehehehe

14 years ago

OK, so this is my first year starting seeds inside. I read that you can expect germination to be about 75% on average, and I figured being new I'd kill a few off myself! So when starting my seeds I figured that if I wanted 2-3 plants of one type that I'd start 5 seeds. Well here I am, I have had 100% germination of everything except my Big Boy toms (which had 0%). They are happy and growing and now mostly in 16 oz cups. We built a stand wiht lights...4 shelves, each 5 feet long, plenty of light, plenty of space, right??? WRONG!. As I pot up, I can't bear to participate in mass herbicide and so have potted up everything, and am out of space! I fear that unless I find a way to better organize the space (I know a bunch is wasted because I have the cups in those aluminum roasting pans, because they were all I had at the time!) So unless I find a way to start unintentionally killing these plants, I fear my success is going to force me into herbicide:) For my first year, what a big problem (and yes, I do have a huge little kid grin on my face:) Thank you to everyone who's helped out so far!

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Comments (2)

sleepy33
14 years ago
Join the club. My husband may leave me if I come home from Home Depot with any more lights... :)
eaglesgarden
14 years ago
zippity,

I'm not sure where you are right now, or what the temps are there right now, but I'm sure that some of the plants you started are more cold hardy than others. If you could put together a cold frame (about as low-tech as you can get), try putting some of the "extras" out there, to see how they fair. If your evening temps are too low, you can always bring them in at night.

Cold frame: If you have any old windows, just lean one up against the south side of your house, and put some kind of a wind barrier on the sides. It doesn't have to be fancy to be effective. If it is not air tight, that's ok for the day time. The sun will heat the frame QUICKLY if it is all closed up. So, air leaks aren't a big problem during the day. They ARE a problem at night, as they wouldn't hold the heat at night, and so the temp inside will be the same as the outside.

Hope this helps a little. Cold hardy crops are greens, cole crops, onions, etc. Tomatoes and peppers are heat LOVING plants, so these guys would not be the first choice for the cold frame.
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