6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
I have not been over watering...planted them up in 3 inch peat pots. I bottom water them until the peat pot is wet and then don't water them again until the soil and pot is bone dry and some of the seedlings start to wilt just a little.
I know you don't think you are over watering but you are or the leaves wouldn't be yellowing. And the peat pots are contributing to the problem which is why many of us won't use them - ever.
The peat pots wick water up too quickly and then wick it away from the soil and the plant roots thus forcing you to water more frequently. When you water until the pot is wet it is too much water for the roots and the leaves yellow. Then the pot dries quickly and begins to pull the water out of the soil drying it out and making you think you need to water again.
If you cannot get rid of the peat pots and move the plants into plastic cups which is the recommended solution, then you will have to water them from the top using a small watering can so that only the soil itself is watered until it is only slightly moist. Make sure the pot gets little of it. The check the deeper soil moisture level, not the pot condition, before watering again.
Going from real wet to bone dry should be avoided at all costs. You want a consistent LOW level of moisture in the soil.
Hope this helps.
Dave
PS: lots of discussions about the many problems with peat pots here you might want to read for future reference. And do be sure to strip it all off the plants before transplanting them.
Thanks very much for the advice, they've been in an un-heated green house for the past few days and they're looking fine even though there's been some cold night's. Will start hardening them off tomorrow. Just got to decide what to do with them all now!
Hi again Caroline. I looked up your member page to find your location, and mentioned the UK in my answer to bring out UK gardeners like Flora uk to also answer your post. If you would edit your name to show your location you would get more responses from gardeners in a similar location to yours. Al
I have a seed packet for this plant that says to sow seed thinly because crowding will lead to weak leggy seedlings. You situation is exactly what I had last year!
You might want to thin a bunch of them right now and let the stronger ones grow a little stem diameter before planting out, if there are any that haven't gotten too leggy.
I thined out about 50 of them and planted each seedling in its own little container.I still keep the rest in the main pot' to transplant later.
Most of the seedlings went into a shock and drooped.A few didn't make it.For the rest I supported then with bamboo sticks and watered daily. They are in full sun (about 6 hours) and so far seem to be doing very well.
I wait for the stems to get thicker before transplanting them to the garden soil.
All depends on what vegetables you are talking about. Leafy greens and cCole crops like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli etc. will do much better inside. They will just bolt otherwise.
Tomatoes would do alright outside in shade.
Dave
Here I am a grower of ornamentals and start lots of seeds, mostly perennials and biennials outdoors in the summer. I have a plastic covered area 10x20 feet open on both ends, mostly shaded by tall trees. The summer temperatures are just about right and the fluctuating day/night temperatures actually seem to help the germination. The seeds are kept plastic covered to maintain moisture until germination, when the plastic is then removed. Al
Mandolls - check 'stratify'. It's the practice of putting moist seeds into a cold environment to break dormancy, and a requirement for many things although not usually for the seeds mentioned above.
I don't know if it would kick start sujiwans older seeds though - always a chance and it doesn't hurt anything but a little refrigerator space occupied to try.
Thanks Art, I think I did cover up the violas a tiny bit. The cold treatment worked, they've all peaked their little green heads out of the pot now! Just took a little longer than I expected.
My coleus, lobelia, thyme, and violas have finally germinated, hooray! The plastic baggie tent worked well. Only thing that hasn't sprouted is the Alyssum. I suppose those are a lost cause, now.
I sowed a mess of alyssum outside, in a pot. I know they're supposed to be a certain distance apart, but honestly, they're tiny seeds...I planted them in some soil (nothing special, I guess--potting soil?) and set them outside. All I've done is try to keep them moist. And I put netting over it to keep the cat out. Several came up. Alas, some of those that did got utterly bowled over in last night's storm. But there are some smaller ones that are OK because they weren't tall enough to get knocked down.
I also tried the same thing with some columbine this year. Nothing happened with them at all. So much for supposedly easy plants (at least, I think they're supposed to be pretty simple).
A carrier for 3" pots will be about as close as you will get.
If you have any large home improvement stores with a garden/plant department, go look in their dumpster. They throw away all sizes of pots and carriers for all the many plants they kill and can't sell. Look for the dumpster that is just outside of the fence near that department. They usually have one that is separate from the main stores garbage.
There's a lot of annuals (like zinnia, cosmos, etc) that say on the seed packet "Can be started indoors x weeks before last frost date OR outside after danger of frost". I am in zone 6/7 and have put zinnias in direct seed in mid summer and gotten a fine show before frost. I f you want a longer show I wouldn't wait that long though! I have been starting many perennials because my seed is getting old. I'll just have to grow a bunch for foliage this year (haha) and get my flowers next in most cases... Your mileage may vary as far as seasonal issues like earlier frosts in Indiana.
I only grew these once and had no trouble. I just sowed them in pots of compost (seed mix) on a windowsill in the kitchen then transplanted outside. I didn't soak or scarify them. I was a student at the time so definitely had no heat mats, propagators etc.
Even with my heating mat my peppers took forever to germinate. Do you have a light source as well? I always put a flourescent shop light above them right above the surface. It provides a little extra heat to help them come out. But i agree, if you are in alaska you will want to start them SUPER early and you may want to do something to heat up the soil where you will plant them. I've read about both plastic mulch and doing a manure/compost heated bed. But I haven't tried either of these methods.
I presprouted my pepper seeds this year. That is, I placed them in a plastic sandwich bag with a piece of moistened paper towel. When I saw roots, I potted them up.