6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Most of what you describe is a fungal infection.... a drop of water stays on the leaf. then fungus thrived & .....
BUT some small part of the problem may be not enough light. hence yellowing. and poor air circulation hence the drops of water remain on the leaf for a extended period.
IF you have some green leaves then remove the yellow diseased leafs. SO
Aaarrrggghhh! Sounds like Beowulf or some such!!
Naw, but Miss Taylor seemed and looked really really olde way back then. I swear I am bald today because she slapped me upside the back of the head at least once a day. ;)
Dave
Connie,
I start all of my seedlings in a soil-less mix of one kind or another. I water them with a weak water-soluble urea-free nutrient mix. It is rather important to use a urea free formula because soil-less mixes don't contain the microbes that are necessary to convert urea to usable nitrate or ammonium ions. One good brand of urea-free formulas are the Better-Gro formulas, Better-Gro Orchid Plus and Better-Gro Orchid Bloom Booster, which you can find at Lowes and some garden centers, as well as several online vendors. For tender seedlings dilute soluble nutrients to ¼ teaspoon per gallon, but for many seedlings ½ teaspoon per gallon is a good dilution. If you plan to grow your plants fairly large in soil-less mixes (as I do) you will need to add some soluble calcium. I use calcium nitrate, which is inexpensive. I also supplement with dilute magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts) for a little extra magnesium and the sulfur is required for healthy plant growth. By using the right soluble nutrients, your soil-less mix can grow plants very well.
ZM
Odd... I thought I already responded to this post, but I guess not.
QUESTION: The soil less seed starter mix has no nutrients. The seedlings are growing their 2nd sets of true leaves...but how long can they stay in the soilless mix?
Seedlings initially grow off what is contained in their seed leaves, and so have very minimal requirements from their environment except light, water, and something to hold onto (and initially, even the light requirement is more for hormonal issues than anything else). However, since yours are already to the point where they have two sets of true leaves, yes, they're going to need to be getting nutrients from their environment.
Now, you can go about this two ways. One, you could transplant into a more nutrient-rich soil. Or two, you could keep them in the mix and just fertilize. The latter case is actually a simple form of hydroponics called static culture. :)
And how long do they have to stay under the lights?
I'm in Door County, WI. and will have 6 or more weeks to go before no frost danger.
They need to stay under the lights until they go outside. Sorry!
And I'm not sure if it's SIZE or WEATHER that will tell me when to move them out.
Will the plants even survive if they stay in soil-less, under florescent lights that long?
Weather. Don't put your plants outside in weather that they can't handle, and be sure to harden them off first! And yes, plants can grow under lights indefinitely... assuming you give them sufficient space and light!
**What do any of you experienced people think of this idea:Instead of just soil less starter to begin...Mix 3/4 sterilized potting soil and 1/4 soil less starting mix. Moisten and use this combination to start seeds?
I start my seeds without soilless mix at all. I make a soil out of a mixture of peat and compost, with a small amount of time-release fertilizer, and optionally, depending on the needs of the particular plant, sand, perlite, or vermiculite. A base of peat plus compost is great at retaining nutrients, does pretty well with retaining moisture, and is pretty airy. I'm very pleased with the results I get out of it. The only time I transplant before putting things outside is when I have too many seedlings in a pot.
I've grown and transplanted every plant mentioned in the original post for years--no problems. I've transplanted onions with no trouble, too, but haven't ever tried the other root vegetables. I can't think of any veggies I've grown that didn't transplant well.
If they can transplant heaRts, you can transplant any vegetable. But then again, not evry medical doctor can do heart transsplant. So it takes know how and pracice and extra care.
I have bought cucumbers many time in those little 4 or 6 packs. In ecah pocKet if I had 4 PLANTS, I would separate then into 2 time two and plant each 2 separately and they will grow.
What I do is soak those plants real good for about 30 minuts. They will eat and drink as mucH as they can. Now they are full. Take them out, pour more water on them if necessay , loosen them up separate them And plant them
AND, WATER THEM RIGHTAWAY, GENTLY THOUROUGHLY, PACK FINE MOIST SOIL AROUND THEM, WATER THEM, FILL SOIL UP YO THEIR SEED LEAVE.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
In zone 7, early April, it is not too late in general.
Also it would depend on the seeds and plant type.
For example, you could have started with parsley, chives,
corianders, lettuce two months ago. Because once they grew a little bit you coull plant them in the garde and not to worry about frosat or cold. But what good it would have been to grow peppers, tomatoes, basils so early? You could not take them out before mid May(in zones 6,7)
Besides, when the weather cold and you plant those warm crops outside they are not going to grow any bigger any time soon. So the plants started a month later but put outside when it is really warme will catch up real fast. The difference won't ba a month , maybe just a week.
This sounds like a good idea. How do you know how long to soak the seeds?
I wonder how well it would work to lay the seeds sparsely on paper towels...or coffee filter paper. Then get the paper very wet. after the allotted time let paper dry enough to handle gently and cut the paper with the sprouted seed on it into small pieces and plant it right into the starter mix?
You dont need to soak very small seeds, because they will get wet in the moist soil quicly. They have a big surfact-to-volume ratio. But I soak bigger hard shelled seed fo a day or two; those are melons(cucurbitas), beans, peas, nasturtiums, 4-Ocklocks, cilantros, onion sets, some spring bulbs, tubors, rhizmuses, ...
sometimes I soak pepper seeds too,but they don't get clumped.
Do you have fungus gnats flying around? Could be the larvae from the fungus gnats?
I've had the same problem with a couple of my seeds that were kept too wet and the seeds rotted.
My solution is to make the soil medium drain better and not hold as much moisture - by adding things like perlite, turface, bark, etc...
Water only when the soil is almost dry throughout not just when the top of the soil is dry. One way to check soil (or soil-less) moisture is by weight; completely water a pot filled with your soil and pick it up to note it's heft. As the pot dries pick it up every so often until it is completely dry.
As for the white stuff, it should go away if you maintain a much less moist environment.
I'm in 5a (just barely), and rosemary is not a perrenial around here. I haven't found a variety that will survive our winters yet. So, if you're in the same boat out there in Chicago, it doesn't really matter when you start it, because you'll have to keep it indoors over the winter either way. Rosemary is a slow grower; you won't get much out of it if you treat it like an annual.
Now, if you were in a warmer climate, it'd be a different story entirely. In Dallas, rosemary can grow like hedges. I have a friend who used to have a house that had giant, ancient rosemary bushes as a decoration. But you're in Chicago, only half a zone warmer than me, so... I don't know if you'll be able to keep them outside year-round, even with a hardy cultivar.
Plus they do not have much culinary use.
Whaaa? Are you kidding? Rosemary is one of my favorite herbs! Potatoes pan-fried with butter and rosemary, rosemary mashed potatoes, rosemary in soups (like my broccoli-cheese-potato-carrot stew, or a hearty vegetable stew, or even minestrone), rosemary in tomato sauces, etc -- the list goes on and on. Rosemary gives a great "rustic" or "savory" flavor to dishes.
check out Winter sowing forum FAQ- you might find this method easier to grow for you.