Yeah, I dumped way to many seeds in my Jiffy 7s in my excitement. :o)
So, now I have some crowded fellas. I got myself little jiffy pots and potting mix ready to go, but my first efforts were with rose moss and I killed 'em. :(
My crowded babies are coleus, rose moss (the ones I left alone), sweet alyssum, shasta daisy, and chinese forget-me-not.
Any tips for getting the babies out safely from the jiffies and into potting mix with more space?
Good Golly. I think ya did sow just a wee to many. LOL If they were mine I would gently try and pull apart the seedlings into may three or four groups if you can. Then I would just cut the tops off all but one plant. Usually if there is two in a pot you can genrally save them both, but you have so many.
Only other thign I could suggest would be to remove the outer wrapping on the jiffy pot and take the pott and carefully run it under soem tepid water to remove all the soil or gently swish it back and forth in a bucket of water til all you have is roots showing and gently distangle them from there.
Nice lookign babies though! : )
I've used those sugar tweezers, the vintage ones. I slightly seperate with a spoon (teaspoon or table) and carefully use the sugar tweezers to seperate and replant. Don't let them dry! You could use lots of things from chop-sticks, forceps, etc.
I would suggest taking the jiffy pots apart and teasing out the roots, very gently.
I've successfully separated seedlings planted tightly together like those. Just hold
them by the leaf not the stem or you'll crush them. I put the group onto a work area
and have the new pots ready to plant up. I use a chop stick to make a deep hole in
each one and then gently let the root go into the hole and damp the soil around the
root when its in there at the right depth, always holding by the leaf.
I use tweezers to separate them but I use my fingers to hold the seedling by its leaf.
Tam
You are brave to show this (LOL)....I have done this many times and just don't tell anyone but my closest friends!!! Your sense of humor is intact for sure!!!!!!!
Larissa - That is something I would do, so don't feel too bad. I'm sooo happy for your little plants having such an enthusiastic little mother. I'm new at growing my own, but am wanting to buy lots more plants than I can afford. I've been reading these threads, trying to screw up my courage to start some seeds. I have pumpkins, gourds, tomatoes and peppers, and honesty (Lunnaria) which is a biennial. Will that even flower the first year? The tomatoes and peppers are for containers, the rest are for my new planned fall decoration garden. Do I start them all indoors, or plant the pumpkins outside?
PrairieGirlZ5, I really can't imagine a life without growing seeds....you can't mess up!!! I know a lady who actually has a website selling seeds (www.dianesseeds.com) and she starts over 17 72cell trays in her house every March with just her window light......and is very successful. Now people like me have to have bio domes, etc. to be sure they are going to germinate..It is such an easy inexpensive way to have so many plants. I have more seeds than you can imagine (not veggies though...we just buy the little plants for the garden). If you can think of flowers you would like to grow, I could send you a few out of many different pkts. You will get so addicted to something easy to do. I have even been using those little bitty dixie cups and putting them in those black nothing trays. (I did order the humidity domes for 1020 trays) . Several suppliers have them....they are only 9.00 for 4 of them...
Let me know if you are interested in learning....
I am, and I have seen your setup, it's very professional. I would be very grateful for any assistance!
I need to get organized, so I've been making room. You could say, getting ready, but I never seem to plan that far in advance. Despite a lot of thought, I tend to daydream.
Looks like a bad storm is coming, so I'm going to sign off for tonight and unplug the computer! Bye for now.
Vicki, your Lunaria (honesty) is very easy to cultivate. Just direct sowing works very well. The seedlings are big and easy to weed around. They do not bloom the first year, but reseed plentifully and you'll be seeing them for many years to come, so keep that in mind. The blooms are pretty and they fill in nicely in more casual, cottagy looking areas. You can cut the seed heads before the green outer skin peels off and releases the seed, and let them dry for arrangements.
I always direct sow pumpkins and gourds, but your growing season may be a little shorter, making sowing in peat pots a good idea. They don't like to be transplanted, but the big seed are easy to sow 2 or 3 per pot. Tomatoes and peppers germinate and transplant easily. You've chosen good things to boost your seed starting confidence!
Larissa, I agree with the recommendations above. They look like they will transplant easily and it looks like you can afford to lose a few, lol. They do look like they are stretching for light, a typical thing for indoor sown seedlings. I keep my new seedlings just a few inches from the lights, and gradually raise them as they grow. If they keep stretching they get weak and spindly. Vicki, those you are starting all really need good light for this reason.
Neal
Thanks for the tips Neal. I was reading about the grow light setup on another thread. Think I need to do that by mid to late March. We plant out here between Mother's Day and Memorial Day. I need to get the trellises built too. I'll just sow the lunaria into the garden along the fence, I think the purple will look nice when it does flower.
Larissa,
I can sympathize with you. I had the same thing happen to me. The first three seeds that I worked with were incredibily small - geraniums, black eye susans, and vinca. Because they were so hard to see, there were areas where I had up to eight seeds. Unfortunately, I just pains me to not keep all of them. For now, I decided to clump transplants some of the larger ones, in the hope that I can pull them apart when they get a little larger.
It is actually kind of ironic - I have much more than I need, but I can't bear to lose any!
LarissaH: I read this on Dave's somewhere--can't remember where. When the seeds are overcrowded like this, first make sure they are well watered and keep a wet paper towel handy to keep the seedlings hydrated while you are working on a clump. then you have a surface--a large poly cutting board for example. then you dump the whole clump out, whacking the bottom of the container -- with a trowel maybe so the whole root ball comes out. then you pick up the whole clump and throw it against the board until the root ball shatters, then you can begin to work on individual seedlings and pot them up by holding onto a leaf and lowering them the root end into a pencil made hole into damp potting mix. This should eliminate the trauma to the seedling by trying to jerk it loose from the root ball. Water the newly planted babies from the bottom until thoroughly wet and then let drain.
Good luck.
Gloria,
Tough love!
I just divided some Anemone Rivularis seedlings. They took a full year to germinate.
They weren't quite as tight as the ones in your jiffy pots but they were tight. I used a
scooping tool to get them onto a flat surface and then tweezers to tease the roots apart.
(they were very moist.) Then I gently lowered the roots into the hole made by a chopstick
into the pot and dropped soil into the hole onto the roots and gently tamped the soil
around the seedling when it was in the hole.
I'll let you know if I was successful. After a year wait for germination, I sure hope it worked!
Tam
