6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
I used a foot warmer mat that I had bought many years ago to keep my feet warm when I had to work in an unheated building, it was made by Tripp Lite. My tomato seeds sprouted in four days using it. It is rated 75 watts so gets quite warm, but if you have a thick layer of dirt and don't have a dome over your seeds it didn't overheat the top of the soil where the seeds were.
Hey, Tomtuxman....I agree with you. If you have the time and patience, you might get something interesting, even if it did not match the hybrid plant. Have you ever planted dried beans? They are cheap, and I read somewhere that if you harvest them early, you can use them as green beans. That would be a huge savings compared to seed packets.
Average germination time for astilbe is 21-60 days, any seedlings appearing within that time frame would be considered the norm.
Your Bayer product/imidacloprid was overkill and I hope you didn't mean you sprayed this in an enclosed environment, like indoors. Imidacloprid isn't appropriate treatment for gnats. It's use outdoors is even in question given the possible consequences to bees and pollinators.
A very effective safe for you/your seedlings approach would have been to use BTi - Bacillus thuringiensis israelenis - for fungus gnat and mosquito larvae. But it was too soon to assume fungus gnat larvae were feeding on seedling roots.
While damp-off is most common at the soil line it can actually affect any part of the stem. Damp-off can even affect large transplants after they are in the garden.
In this case most likely the stems were infected at the soil line but the symptoms weren't apparent until the plant had grown past the soil line. A bit simplistic I know but picture the fungus attached to the stem and riding it up the stem until growing conditions were right for it to activate.
Lower the air temperature, decrease the humidity, and increase the consistent air circulation for the rest of your seedlings.
If you want an experiment to do, snip off the affected seedlings a bit below the damaged part of the stem and leave the rest of the stem to see what happens. Some have reported they have been able to salvage affected seedlings this way and new growth develops from the roots once the growing conditions are changed. See what happens with yours.
Dave
The smell is caused by bacteria growing in it, just like if you had a bucket of kitchen waste full of water.
If it's worth it to try to keep it, spread it out fairly thinly on something that drains well. Vinyl window screening cut to fit the bottom of some flats comes to mind. And sit them out in the full sun until they're dry. If it's going to rain again, put them under shelter.
You CAN put them in the oven, but the smell is worse than you can believe -- really bad!
If it isn't crucial that you use this particular bag, just toss it into the garden like Calistoga suggested.
If you have seeds that are very important to you, don't use this soil to start them.
And keep your potting soil out of the rain.
Sue
Yes begonias are slow to get started, even from tubers. They just seem to sit there for a while then all of a sudden they seem to spurt up.
Yes I would wait until they get their second true leaves. I would off set or raise slightly your humidity cover so the plants get some air circulation and it will still keep in the moisture. However when they are getting close to all having their second leaves I'd get rid of the cover.
Since you don't have lights or greenhouse, I'd move them outside in the day when the weather is warmer and bring them in at night. Put them in a protected spot in shade. If you leave them on the window sill they tend to get leggy and lean towards the sun.
Tried the plants, or tried Plant World? I order from them, would certainly recommend. They ship well handled seeds that are as they describe.
The angelica should be fairly straightforward...pre treatment not required but a 2 week moist chill might improve germination.
No pretreatment for the silene either but germination can sometimes be slow for s. dioica that appeals to you. Keeping that in mind, you might want to get going on that order coming from overseas.
Wow, everything looks great! I'm so jealous of your seedlings, all I have are little begonias and lobelia that are soooo teeny tiny and take forever to grow. But we just got another 4 inches or so of snow yesterday, so that's helping me remember that it's still too soon to start anything else up here. :)
Thanks, they are not getting much sunshine these days. We have had lots of rain and the temps are still real low. I know I started everything early, but I wanted to try and get my plants as large as I could before they get planted. Next problem will be re-potting. I do hope for some sun for a few days.
I actually went the really cheap route... I had a clothes drying rack lying around, the kind with the horizontal bars, about four feet tall. I suspended the light from chains, and it hangs below the lowest bar. 100 percent free. And serves more than one purpose!
Kim
Onions are no different than any other seeds when it comes to containers. ;) The Container FAQ here offers many suggestions and a picture of many and they will all work for onions too.
Link below is to a previous discussion with even more suggestions unless you want to invest in more professional seed starting set-ups. Search 'container' for even more discussions and ideas.
As to number of seeds - onions are usually sowed quite thickly and then thinned as needed or transplanted so you can just scatter sow the seeds all over the top of you soil in whatever size container you choose to use.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Favorite seed starting continers to use discussion
obrio that's a pretty descent size of container for onions. I am also using the same size and i am happy with it.
As far as seeds quantity is concerned, i always sow the seeds in heavy density as Dave mentioned so the question of how many seeds becomes pointless :)
Thanks all...I scraped off the mold, carefully as not to spread it around, brought the plants inside from the garage adn have been airing them with the fan. They probably were holding onto too much water since it's been so chilly and damp here!! It's not reoccurring, so hopefully I've got it before it got too bad.
Thanks for all the good advice (and for the compliment on my baby Flame tomato :)
Krazy Karma-
I have been really happy with the following heirloom / non gmo seed merchants:
Woops ! Lets set some things straight here. This thread is full of errors. Most hybrids are not sterile. Rememeber if they were sterile they could not pollinate themselves in straight stands where hybrids are often grown. Its true you can have a sterile hybrid (interspecific hybridization/nuclear sterility genes, etc) but to paint all hybrids sterile is a gross mis-interpretation.
Heritage lines breed true ? Nooo - heritage refers to the perceived origin of the plant. Just because the population it derives from was developed in the last century has nothing to do with its mode of reproduction which is the driving force on the genetic structure of the population and determines whether it is genetically uniform, or not. If you have a largely self pollinating plant like pea - it can maintain genetic continuity and stability over time. Out crosssing plants (corn/pumpkin)are extremely difficult to maintain in pure state without controlled pollinations unless they are growing in strict isolation. So, the bottom line is that a heritage label has very little to do with genetic continuity across generations. It follows that genetic purity is NOT a broad result of heritage/antique labelled material. Rather the opposite. Often such material is diverse in genetic background because of ad-mixtures, outcrosssing, segregating material, accumulated mutations and more... all this speaks to diverse germplasm not purity and uniformity.
GMO=genetically modified organism. Most GMO's are mans insertions of genetic material into the genome of another recipient plant. The donor can be from the same or another species.
Organic production is the PROCESS of production. Whether a cultivar is labelled as "heritage" or "antique" has little to do with process and much to do with provenance/origin and handling of the germplasm over its history. Its true, but confusing, that organic standards impose restrictions and requirements on cultivars that qualify for "organic labelling". However, these seed source restrictions are aimed at excluding certain material deemed to be undesirable. Less to do with directly qualifying the source as more desirable than another. Yes, I know some ideological purists will not agree. However, you can grow a GMO modified plant in an organic production system - it will not qualify for organic labelling, but it will have been grown organically. Confused - so is the rest of the world. So are the standards.
Back to seed prices. Driving factors in price increases are rapidly escalating costs of shipping and regulatory/legal compliance.
Hmm, I dunno, I guess it was just one of those things I had heard and never questioned. I've never had a shortage of space and the types of lettuce I like grows like crazy, so I guess I've never really looked into it. Good to know for future reference, though. Thanks!
I have a sweet mix, then I just bought some little gem romaine from the new Baker Creeks store that opened near me.
I'll be haunting that place in another week or so!