DJ9'S WINTER ROBIN " IN FLIGHT " PT 5

I Planted some seeds out in the GH But not sure they will do much & Also scattered all the OLDER seeds from last fall & Last spring swap out in the back yard once our weather warms up they might just grow :)

well time to get off here back tomorrow .
susie

almost all of mine are sprouting. planted many, many 6 cell starter packs, was so proud of myself, marked each 6pack with what i thought was indelible ink. now i have lots of little plants with lots of little blank sticks.. aaaaaaaarrghhhhhhhhh. this is the second time i have done this. guess i will be using the plant id forum a lot because most of them were things i had never planted before. on the plus side about 90 % germination.

Mini-blind slats! Mechanical pencil, 0.7mm tip!

Outdoors, a few snow peas are about 1/2 inch tall and looking like they regretted sprouting.

Indoors, success with Salvia for the first time, some with one pair of true leaves.
Lobelia indoors: great germination, they look like moss.
Then they stalled: no taller than moss weeks later!
Zinnias and Cosmos indoors: happy, 3-4" tall.

Petunias indoors: tiny little stubburn slow-growing stalled grumble grumble - I think they liked peat better than pine bark. Or they thrived on being soggy ... who can figure?
Did they need dark to germinate?

Corey

I have maybe 10% of 5 72-cell packs alive. I had a lot come up then they died off in droves. I don't know what happened! I did what the wrapper said to do. I did have different things in there, and they germinated at different times, but were doing great until............... Any idea what I did wrong?????

P-touch labels on cut up blinds work great too and are what I use in my gardens. Although I cheated with seeds since I had "a pinch of this and a pinch of that" and used a Sharpie to make labels and tucked them deep in the peat pots or cells, not knowing what would survive. I took the greenhouse covers off flats this morning so they could catch the rain and hope that wasn't a mistake, it's not been torrential, just steady all day, and will put them back on tomorrow when we warm up again. It was only 50 today and is supposed to be in the 80's tomorrow.....what a roller coaster ride. I'm with you, Patti, it's frustrating to follow instructions and still have seedling wither away. I had a few do the same thing and think it was from the flats being too wet and had some damping off.

High 50's today ☼ then MON-THUR More Rain We had some really THUNDER BUSTERS Last nite & LIGHTENING also sounded like some hail hitting the roof but i didn't get out to look at it .

SO Carolyn you will be next on the list to get the Robin bet your excited :) hey anyone have pictures of any of your success maybe it can give us some incouragement :)♦(MS) ☼

SEEDS,SEEDS, SEEDS comming up for air for a few minutes gotta take my plants I have indoors outdoors, then back to seeds.

Having loads of fun looking.Who is Lavinia? Anyone know? her name is so close to mine.

Lavina

those seeds must be to you from other members or seeds you shared in the last robin ?????

If I have seen that name anywhere, I probably did not look close enough to see the difference, and thought it was one in the same.

Thanks for your note, Lavina, and for sending the Robin on to Carolyn22.

Pic is a hodge-podge of peat pots started.

These are mostly Cosmos & Zinnias and did make labels for these as I'll plant the contents of each (like a patty) when the seedlings are large enough, hoping to collect seeds later on.

NICE Collection :) I Think I will plant all of mine right into the flowerbed I'm no good at transplanting anything.
i hope the ones i scattered out in the back will Germinate .

well you all have a good nite chat in the morning .
susie

PS There IS only one Lavina :)))) also I tried to call you with the # You sent to me but it gose to a human resourse
recheck the Number you sent me OK ..

LOL I eat and sleep DSS sorry about that put my number on d-mail. Got a few packets to go and will be thru.

Lavina

Hope your trays do better than mine did Fruity. I had terrible damping off. MAYBE have 10% out of 5 72-cell trays. I think I am going to plant again in the ones that have no plants.

I've had some damping off too and a lot of cells haven't germinated yet. Can't remember the name of the plants now but the packs said it could take up to 60 days for seeds to germinate. Geez, I planted them but who's that patient?

Anybody interested in the seeds I have left? Check my list near the top of the thread and let me know.

ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL BACK HOME

LAVINAMAE--------------------NC------APR 21 ST
FRUITOFTHEVINE----------VA----GOING TO BE GONE
MERRYMATH---------------PA ----GOING TO BE GONE
CAROLYN22--------------------PA ----APRIL 27 TH
JANAESTONE------------------OH---MAY 4 TH
DIAMOND9192002-------------IND----MAY 11 TH
DEEJAY9------------------------MI---MAY 18 TH

Crit,

Like you, I've lost lots of seedlings to damping off (they fall over like the stem rotted where it went into the soil.

Now I try to let the SURFACE DRY OUT between waterings, by using a faster-draining seedling mix, with less peat so it holds less water.

I read a suggestion that may help me stop over-watering: forget about "damp but not soggy" or "moist but not wet". After years of killing seeds, I clearly don't know what those mean in practice.

The suggestion was to aim for "just barely NOT QUITE DRY".

Maybe I can stop myself from spraying or adding bottom water if I look and think "It's not quite dry yet - so it's already NOT QUITE DRY - so I better not add water until it IS barely dry.

And then I should add so little water that it's "just barely not dry".

I haven't actually succeeded in not over-watering ... but I don't seem to see any damping off since I went crazy with sand, grit, Perlite and pine bark. I haven't used any "soil" in seed mixes lately, and I'm carefull to clean everything between plantings.

I would worry about re-planting into a cell that just killed its seedling with damping-off fungus! Did you spray peroxide or anything?

Maybe Mel's idea helped me (Mel of "Square Foot Gardneing"). He sprinkles some clean vermiculite under a seed, and covers with vermiculite, so the stem is only exposed to sterile vemiculite (it may be damp, but it does let air in and lets the seed push through easily - vermiculite doesn't get crusty and hard, even when dry.)

Some people sprinkle grit on the surface after germination. That holds very little water, is so clean it's easy to think "sterile" and drains very fast. But then, how can you tell if the whole cell has dried out, if the surface is always dry?

I always over-water, for some reason it's hard not to. Yesterday I tried to do some potting up, but found that Salvia had only tiny roots, and the cells were very wet in the whole bottom 1/2 to 2/3rds.

I think the salvia roots stalled because too much water had displaced too much air, and the roots couldn't get oxygen if they went down too far.

Despite fairly fast-draining mix, I was over-watering so that the batting between the tray and the cells was always wet. I think I need to let the BOTTOMS of the cells dry out a little sometimes: not just the tops.

More viogorous plants like Zinnias and Cosmos just shoved roots down and sucked the water right out. They pushed their roots right out the bottom of the cells and into the batting! But they have not filled their cells and circled any, so the tiny root balls crumbled as I ttried to pot u.

So I'll give them another week to get a little more root-bound in their cells: at least root-bound enough to hold their root balls mostly together when I pour them into my hand!

Corey


This message was edited Apr 24, 2011 9:21 PM

Some other ways I've killed seeds:

so soggy they never even sprouted.

in front of a window where they got chilled at night, and too hot in the daytime

didn't take the dome or film off when some of the tray sprouted: too much humidity, damping off

didn't give them enough light after sprouting: tall, spindly, few lives, fell over from being too tall, not with rotted bases

kept them in small cells too long after they got big (these didn't die, just stalled from being rootbound and insifficient light)

didn't harden them off gradually enough (these didn't die, just permanently twusted and stunted, kind of like freezer-burn)

put them outside: instantly mowed down flush with the soil by slugs.

I think I discovered something obvious:

I should either pot up while roots are still so tiny I don't care if all the soil falls off, it's just a thread anyway
...
or
...
wait until the roots have a good firm grip on the soil, approaching being root-bound, and I can pop out a root BALL that somewhat holds its shape while I tilt it into a hole in a bigger pot.

I usually like a slightly soft but almost-self-supporting root ball, so I can squash it somewhat flat in the new pot if I want to, keeping the roots in the top 1/3rd of the new pot. That way, the roots will have further down to go before they come out the bottom of the new pot.

For example, the conical or pyrimidal root ball from a cell in a 72-tray (6x12) is only a little shorter than a 9 ounce Dixe cup. (4" Dixie cup, 2.5" cell, and I fill the cell to the brim but need some empty room at the top of a cup for watering)

If I move a HARD, fully-root=bound root ball from a 72-cell into a Dixe cup, there might be only 1" of new soil under it, and roots will be coming out the bottom of the Dixe cup in less than a week, even though the top 3" of the Dixe cup still has few roots.

I think it goes better if I can half-fill the cup with soil, or 2/3rds-fill the cup with soil, and "squash" the root ball from the 72-cell from 2.5" to just over 1". Now it mostly fills the top of the cup with roots, and the roots still have 2.5 - 2.75 inchs of soil to grow DOWN through.

And I think they fill the soil more uniformly with roots, this way.

Hopefully, they'll last long enough that I won't have have to pot them up a second time before warm weather.

Nine ounce Dixie cups are my smallest "potting up size". Mostly I use 3.5" pots that have almost twice the soil, but no greater depth. However, I can fit almost twcie as many small Dixies as 3.5" pots, in one tray. And I am out of room for nmore trays!

Warm weather, where are you??

Corey

Thanks for all the great info Corey. As always, you are a wealth of information. One question, do you take the batting off the root ball or leave it on when you pot them up?

I have read various posts on DG where cinnamon is used to prevent fungus and damping off. I have not tried this myself, but it is worth looking into....

Carolyn It might be tomorrow when the robin goes back up in flight but I'm sure Lavina will send you the conformation # When it goes out.
well you all have a great week & Hope it is a safe one . Rain here for the next 4 days .

whenever is fine for Lavina, is fine for me.

thanks

Crit,

>> do you take the batting off the root ball or leave it on when you pot them up?

Where the roots had grown out of the cells and into the batting, they broke off when I moved the 6-pack of cells.

I haven't thought of any way around that ... so maybe I'll call it "root pruning" and try to think of some reason why it's a good idea.

Even if I cut the batting into little squares where the roots have dug into it, I doubt if I could pull it through the slit in the botttom of the cell.

Maybe, next year, I'll look for some denser-woven fabric that roots won't grow into. In theory, I could grow the cells and plug trays in trays with no batting, and keep the tray bottoms mostly dry. Then roots wouldn't be encouraged to grow out of the bottoms of thee pots.

I could transfer everything into a different tray, with batting or whatever, and bottom water there.

Then transfer them to something where excess water would drain out.
Then transfer them a third time back to the dry trays under lights.

Yeah, right.

If I have to do all that, I might give up on seeds and start buying potted plants, or maybe plastic flowers!

Corey

Carolyn,

I do use cinnamon. I didn't think about putting it on the cell set until I started having problems. I did, but think it was too late, or saved the ones that are still alive. I put it in my dirt and mix it up good when I am putting dirt in pots.

The bird is back in the air
I got just 1 thingy of seeds but sure enjoyed looking all the other stuff.
CAROLYN here it comes.
Mail ran by my house yesterday so I asked Post lady why postman told me it was closed yesterday and she said she had a doctors appt, in Greenville and she could not find anyone to keep it open while she was gone.. Guess I do live in a small place when you can close the PO to go to the Doctor.
Hope all is well and all your seeds are comming up. My roses are blooming like crazy.And so is the Spiderwort.

Lavina

Lavina

thank you for the heads up!

Carolyn you should get the box today. Yeah it says its out for delivery

Lavina

Lavina -

thanks for the heads up!

It's here! It's here! Yayyyy

carolyn you must be in seed heaven !

Hey Karen ........ good to see you. You been hiding? Everything OK?

Hi Crit-justtrying to overcome a major financial setback. had to rearrange my entire life. thank goodness for gardens and flowers and the people on DG !!

Well, glad to see you back!

Gosh, Corey!

You sure have a "water issue". Me, the opposite problem. I mix vermiculite with peat about half and half, or so. No fancy soil mix. I go to check and I find that many have dried out. Maybe the lights are too hot or maybe because some were on heat mats...OH! Did I skip a day? What happened? When I start out, I am filled with enthusiasm, and then something happens. Somehow I get distracted and I lose a few here and there. Then I get called away to go somewhere and sure enough, more have dried out. OH! I had better check them now. The ones on the back porch are better than the ones in the house. Still, I will have to check each one. Maybe start less at a time.

Does anyone else have my problem? It isn't funny. I went to a lot of trouble to start all of these and I want them to grow. And yes, Corey, the petunias do take a very long time! I have a new repesect for those who grow petunias for a living.

My first two years starting Petunies from seed were eye-openers - I finally found something slower than I am! They germinated better than I expected, until this year.

This year they are slow, feeble, and just look like they're waiting for a good day to die, the few that came up. I think they dislike my new barky-gritty soil mix. Too coarse.

"Vermiculite and peat 50-50" sounds like a way to hold a LOT of water. If you can dry out that combination, you DOhave a light watering hand.

The only way I can GET my trays of cells to dry out is to exercise more discipline than I have, for longer than I'm usually able. Just recently I gritted my teeth and waited a few days past "dry surface" and "that tray seems pretty LIGHT". Finally I had to sprinkle the surface, and then bottom-water at least a little. But I think the soil got a little drier than usual.

I sprout my seeds in my bedroom, and check them on waking, getting home from work, and going to bed - at least. And for some reason, I just like to water them. Meddling? The illusion of helping them? Wanting to feel needed?

Kind of like "I like to turn the soil over and break up clumps". It just feels good, and I imagine that I'm an important part of accelerating soil health.

I wonder if there is any psychological system for analyzing people based on their garden habits - like Rorschach gardening.

One neighbor of mine, I call "Atilla the Gardener". She has high expectations - demands - and limited space and limited patience. If a plant doesn't thrive and look good pretty quickly where she planted it, she either moves it right away or tosses it out. "Up or out!" She has a beautiful garden in a small space, but if I were one of her plants, I would live in constant fear!

Yeah, "water issue" sounds about right. Killing them with attention.

Maybe that's why I just acquired some "water lettuce" seeds from Thailand. They need a constantly boggy situation and during the dry season I'll probably have to water them daily..

Corey

HEY HAPPY GARDENING EVERYONE :))) DI Are you watching us :) Hope all is well I Think you will be seeing the ROBIN LAND AT YOUR DOORSTEPS ON WEDS THE 4TH Possible.

Will be in & out much of today Much to do . chat Soon

I was going to try sprinkling some petunia seeds in some of my pots right now to see what happened. I know I have had petunias reseed themselves and show up the following year, so I don't think the cold nights we are still having should be a problem.

Any one know where I can find a 7 foot a frame wooden ladder?

oh yeah I found my bag of magenta double Holly Hawk seeds amd body need some I have probably enough for 5 people. d-mail me

Lavina

This message was edited May 1, 2011 9:33 AM

Yep, I'm here, Susie...getting so excited to see the robin visit my house! I'm-a-waitin....^_^