6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Have you considered blue-eyed grass. It is a wildflower of the lily family. It just seems to show up in flower beds--at least it did in mine. It has very pretty little blue flowers. I don't know about anyone else but I like it and have left it alone. If you ever want to get rid of it it is very easy to pull out.
It's not blue-eyed grass, I grow it also and it has kinda flat stiff 'leaves'....I also have chives which have kinda rounded 'leaves'....but this is just a very fine grass..I did think maybe 'just grass'...but it really looks like a 'bunch' of whatever just re-seeded there. I also notice some individual 'sprigs' in the back of my garden. I will try to get a pic this weekend and post it.
Thanks everyone.
Thank you so much! I will find a grow light today
If you read the FAQ I linked for you on lights or some of the other posts here on light, you'll discover that "grow lights" are not what you need. Grow lights are a special kind of bulb used for blooming and fruiting plants, not seedlings, and much more expensive.
Dave
You are in zone 9 so can you start hardening them off and getting them outside asap? Do it gradually as these etiolated plants will not take kindly to sudden changes. It should certainly be warm enough for the chard and mustard. I'm not familiar with your squash and tomato planting times.
I grew them last year and was also unimpressed - not as interesting a color and moderate production. I don't eat raw tomatoes so I can't comment on the taste (the rest of the family does). I have a few seedlings in the basement, but haven't decided if I'm going to try them again.
Andrew
Your soil is too wet. That is why the leaves are turning yellow and the blossoms are dropping. Miracle grow tends to do that because it is mostly peat moss, or maybe the pot is not draining well, or maybe you just made it too wet when you transplanted.
Check and see if the holes are plugged. If you've just transplanted it, It has not settled in yet so you could upend it and transplant it again in dryer soil
That's really strange. Do you have them on a heat pad? I've had soil stay moist under a dome for literally weeks without watering it. I suspect either your heat is way too hot and causing the soil to dry out or that your soil wasn't moist enough to begin with. Regardless, all you can do now is wait and see. Sometimes they will still germinate, sometimes not.
I used the Burpee 72 pod ultimate kit (self watering tray). The Burpee disks you put warm water on worked very well for me - 70 out of 72 tomatoes, eggplant, peppers sprouted and are doing well. The self watering container worked fine. I don't have a heating mat - two lamps with standard 100 watt bulbs provided the heat for germination. Then $20 for a two bulb 4 foot fluorescent shop lite, with one standard bulb, one "daylight" bulb. The tomatoes are already transplanted to larger containers. Peppers & eggplant coming along fine. I used stack of books to prop the light a few inches over the sprouts.
In general, it's better to underwater (meaning to provide less water than is necessary) than to overwater (meaning to drown your seedlings in massive amounts of water). Because it's easier to correct the dry plant problem (provided it's not too late), than it is to correct the soaked soil problems (damping off, mold growth, etc).
The cells should start to seem a little on the dry side, before watering, and therefore before fertilizing with a diluted solution. The amount depends on the size of the plants, and their need. In general, make too much dilution, and water sparingly at first, and if your plants soak it up quickly, and the top hasn't been moistened yet, add some more. Eventually you will figure out how much you are adding.
Agree with all eaglesgarden said above.
An easy way to do it if all you have is 1 tray is just mix up a jug of the liquid fertilizer you are using and water - a 1/2 gallon milk jug works fine - and follow the directions on the label to make it 1/2 strength or weaker (I often use 1/4 strength). Then pour about 3/4-1 inch in the bottom tray, wait a few minutes until the top of the soil in the cells appears damp and then tip the tray and pour what is left in it back into the jug. Cap and save it till next time.
Dave
Oh boy, I get to show off my limited knowledge.
The green comes from Chlorophyll. Not green until the light puts it to work. 62 years ago, when I was sleeping in class, I remember the teacher saying some thing about there being both green and red or brown Chlorophyll I bet Goggle would have a lot to say.
When starting onions from seed I always plant the seed in a container and transplant the seedling into the garden. It is impossible to plant the seed without getting them much too close together. From a purchased two inch container of seedlings you can easily get 50 transplants. Al
As long as the seed is under the ground it can't freeze unless it's a hard frost that freezes the ground to where they are.
Poppies don't freeze easily anyway. I have had poppies reseed themselves and come up the next spring.
All you are doing with your milk bottles is warming the ground and maybe making it too hot if the excess heat has no where to escape to. You would be surprised just how hot it gets under plastic. Be sure to remove the bottles when they sprout or you will have fried poppies
It may be a little early, but they probably will not germinate right away. I usually wait to direct sow warmer season crops until around the last frost date (May 10th in my area). I am not sure weather or not the frost will have an affect on your specific seed.
Thanks for the info, Sarah! I haven't had many responses. Yours definitely helps, but i'll still probably read up on them today to get my facts straight. =) I'll prob make myself a little cheat sheet of sorts for them since i've never grown any of them before.
- Steve
Here is a link that might be useful: Steve's Garden
I would have started all of those 6-8 weeks ago.
You may want to try wintersowing or direct sowing.
Successful supplies:
Sterile potting soil and/or seed starting mix.
Well vented growing area
Lights
containers
trays to catch water when bottom watering
plant ID labels/tags
fertilizer
and enough room to keep your plants happy without crowding them.
Keriann~
Many, many, many hints and advice in all of your plants here in this forum. Search each one to find more specific answers.
No photos, but I can tell you about them. A leggy Tomato and pepper will have a weak thin stem with lots of space between the leaves and branches. It just looks weak. A perfect Tomato or pepper plant will have a thick stem It will be compact and bushy and the branches will be closer together.
Dave,
Thanks. Will the 3-4 seedlings form one crown?
Perfect timing--I'm going to try my first asparagus this year! Question: can you set the seedling out when the plant is very young, much smaller than 5-6 inches? Also, once the seeds have germinated in water and you place them in the pellets can you immediatly place them outside under the protective plastic pellet tray top so you don't have hardening-off issues? I've never hardened off. I'm doing WS this year and I'd like to copy that style with asparagus, if possible, and have them spend time outdoors before putting in the ground.