Starting Seeds 2013, Part 3

Barb,

I'm not a fan of vermiculite as a soil improver. It is very fragile and breaks down in weeks or months into powder. Sand and grit last forever.

Bark fines last a few years, and bark nuggets last 3-4 years. As bark breaks down (rather slowly) it feeds the soil life.

Compost only lasts one season if your soil is "hungry" and needs organic matter badly, like most unimproved soil. But it improves the soil's water-holding ability, and structure (aeration and drainage, mainly) a lot.

"Feeding the soil life" is what compost is best at. The worms, fungi and bacteria that soil needs, need food.

With all the energy, time, and equipment spent on sowing seeds for a beautiful garden, I hope you all know that any plant that is a hybrid will not come true from seeds. Only those that are not hybrids will. Off hand I can mention hybrids such as Petunias, Datura, Nicotianas, Iris , Daylily, Penstemon, Snaps, Four O'Clocks , Veronicas, florist geraniums (Pelagonium) and many of the plants mentioned here. Can't forget Tomatoes, Peppers, etc. They are hand polllinated by hybridizers to produce new varieties. If bee pollinated, they may resemble its parent in some ways. In general, hybrids come in different colors of blooms. Non-hybrids are usually limited that way. Only plants in the same genera will cross.

Blue Salvia is not a hybrid. However, I collected seed from a white form of Salvia and got blue. Also, it is very possible that seeds not true from hybrids can be more difficult to sprout. That is only a thought.

sparklinBarb, Mike
I have clay soil and all I amend the soil with is peatmoss, grass clipping, kitchen scraps (no meat), and horse manure. I am lucky since my daughter and SIL owns 6 horses. Their soil is sandy so I get some of that also. One year, I did buy a bag of "Clay Buster from HD for I was curious. Turned out that it is a glorifies form of bark with soil. I was not impressed since it wasn't cheap.

This message was edited Mar 27, 2013 6:15 PM

Mike
Vermiculite is good for adding drainage to potting soil for moisture loving house plants. I have never had it break down. It would not be cost effective for a garden.

I have clay soil as well, I try to add 10-20 bags of sand each year, I mulch with 20-30 bags of shredded maple leaves, add compost from yard, kitchen and garden waste. The soil isn't super fabulous, but it's not pure clay like it was 10 years ago.

After 30 hours of soaking my 6 Mirabilis Jalapa seeds (4 O'Clocks), since I had so few, I planted them in a 6-pack in seed starting mix.

Better late than never, I did start Lobelia Siphilitica, in vermiculite in a little cup, and put it under the dome. Nothing else new... Salvia Victoria Blue. Snaps and Nicotianas separated a few days ago all growing well, everything else looks fine...

Good point about hybrids, Blomma. I buy new seeds for many annuals, particularly Petunias and Snaps where I know I want the characteristics to come true (not to mention how hard it is to collect those minuscule seeds!). Nicotianas Sylvestris and Langsdorfii are not hybrids, but many, if not most others on the market are. N Nicki Pink has come up the expected color from gathered seed, at least so far. This is the first year I'm growing Fragrant Cloud from my seed, I'll know soon enough how that works. I do try to keep the plants I want to collect from separate from other colors, so far so good.

I wonder if the Veronicas I'm trying so hard to germinate are sterile? They are all hybrids, and gathered, not newly bought seeds. Has anyone had any luck with them? They are all hybrids, are they not? Maybe they can only be propagated vegetatively? If that's the case, I'd still be disappointed, but at least know it wasn't my failure.

Hmmmm... Always something...

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 11:54 AM

Fragrant Cloud comes true from seed for me. I haven't planted it in years, I bought plants a few years ago, and it reseeds here and there.

Whoopee!!!!!!! Look what I saw this morning! Buds on Platy Permutter! Soooo excited....

My indoor seedlings are being eaten by something. Can anyone please tell me what this is and how to treat it? Thanks!

Schaff20,

Yellow splotches and edges? Are you sure it's something eating the leaves?

Could it be excessive fertilizer or salts? ("burn"?)

Are they plants that could have a virus infection , like Tomato mosaic virus?

Birder, looked up the Black Prince and they are listed at 18 or 30-36" from various different places..wonder why there is such a difference in heights. I am sure the ones I grew were Black Prince at 36". If you'ld like to do a trade on the Plum Blossim seed let me know I could probably find something you might like...lol. I'd be happy to share seed with you, I am in the process of getting a package together that will be sent off to S. Africa Fri. or Sat.

And blomma, do you happpen to any and seed for the Veronica, sightseeing. I have the blue in my garden but had lost the white and pink forms, altho I might have a babie of the pink, not sure will have to see if it comes back this year, came up just out of the blue I guess. I had origonally gotten mine from England more than 15 years ago. In fact I have alot of old seed, some as much as 15+ years and wouldn't think of getting rid of any of it... And I still collect when I get the chance, most new went into 2 different seed trades the past few months.

My goodness Pam...what in the world are you feeding them? I don't even have any blossoms on those huge tomatoes of mine.

Too strong of a solution, back off a bit on quantity, mine did the same thing a few weeks back and went to just once per week....looking much better now.

thanks! Hopefully they can withstand the watering from this morning. oops. I'll back off and see what happens.

You might try all-water for a few waterings.

(Also, I thought Super-Thrive was just for getting seedlings roote4d. Do you have to add more after the first few waterings? I don't really kn ow either way.)

I also wonder - besides excess fertilizer, could you be over-watering?

If the mix is fine and peaty, it will hold more water than the roots really want. Ideally, any excess water would run right out the bottom of the pot. But most seed-start mixes and many potting mixes hold too much water.

Too much water in a fine mix can exclude air, which drowns the roots. Maybe after one all-water watering, don't water again until they have drunk most of the water in the pot (gauged b y its weight).

Better yet, set them on top of something that will wick excess water OUT of the cells. As it pulls out excessive water, that will leave room behind for air to enter. (So the roots can breath.) Then, if you n ed to "flush away" excess fertilizer, excess water will run out as fast as you add it.

(BTW, some people are careful to avoid watering young plants with too-cold water. I don't think it needs to be "warm", just not-cold.

Roots need air, and so do beneficial soil bacteria and fungi. "Bad" soil mic robes tend to be anaerobic.

If you come to think root drowning / overwatering was the problem, next year try a lighter, more open mix, by mixing in more Perlite or grit or pine bark shreds. Add coarse stuff with grain sizes like 2-5 mm or BBs to 1/5".

When you re-pot these next time, try adding a SOMEWHAT more open mix. But you should not change TOO abruptly from pure peat to coarse chunks - water won't form a capillary connection if the change is too abrupt.

Please let us know how they do! That's how everyone learns.

Schaff, I have everything on self-watering trays, so my seedlings are always wet. Because of the extra oxygen molecule in peroxide, overwatering shouldn't be an issue. I use 1 or 2 drops of Superthrive at the most per 1/2 gallon of water/peroxide 10:1 to fill my trays. Too high concentrations of either or both could be a problem maybe? I do agree that it looks more like something systemic, disease or too much of something, rather than chewing.

Last year I had Black Prince snaps, and they were short, pics below, with Stachys Hummelo. Kind of a disappointment, actually, not what I expected.

Teehee, Kathy, I dunno... Funny though, last year the blue ones bloomed at that height in the garden. I wonder if these will get taller this year? I'm going to pot them up early next week, maybe that will help. I'll have room because I'm taking some plants to CT, and DD will be taking some of hers next week too. Of course I've been trimming them, which might have something to do with why they're not taller...duh...

Whoopee... CT tomorrow! Finally! I wonder if we still have snow?!

I just did a little Google on Black Prince Snapdragons, and it looks like I didn't get the real thing. While browsing, though, I came across this:

This snippet from D.H. Lawrence's poem "Snap-Dragon" seems especially suited to the Black Prince snapdragon:

She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower
Closing its crimson throat; my own throat in her power
Strangled, my heart swelled up so full
As if it would burst its wineskin in my throat
Choke me in my own crimson; I watched her pull
The gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did float
Over my eyes and I was blind...

http://www.alchemy-works.com/antirrhinum.html


This message was edited Mar 28, 2013 10:51 PM

Kathy,
I am sorry but no, I have no seeds from V. Sightseeing. Actually no Veronica seeds at all. I bought my seeds from Park seed company years ago. Check Walmart, etc, they may have it.

Ok as for the Snaps Is it best to give the heat or light to Germinate ? also foxglove , & Lupines never done these before best to wait & Plant right where I want them to grow or plant them NOW ?

I wintersow snaps and foxglove, I've never grown lupine till this year, and I have some WS seed, I'll update with how it works out :)

Craziness this am, heading out!

update this morning:

plants are no longer wilted. yeah! there are about 6 plants that have the spots on at least one leaf. I picked off a few of the leaves because they were completely destroyed. an interesting thing I notice is that the infected plants are near each other in the middle of the table, in the middle of the growing lights. coincidence?

Rick, the soil is fairly coarse and dry. I was able to easily wiggle my finger straight to the bottom of the pot. It's a cheaper priced garden soil with a fertilizer (and lots of twigs!). I accidentally bought it instead of potting soil.

Snaps and Foxgloves should germinate fine with no heat, faster with. Lupines need chilling, in 2011 it took 3-4 weeks Deno in the fridge before they germinated. They only need light after they sprout.

Good news, Schaff...

Our Internet won't be connected at the house until after the weekend, so this is it until for a couple of days unless we go to a friends house.

Happy gardening, everyone!

Thanks blomma, I willl try to find.

Susie, which foxglove are you wanting to start? If it's something I already have, I can ship some in Mayish with the others that will be coming your way. And mine would be months ahead of yours... I'm thinking I over did it with the foxglove..lol.... Just doing my method, I've had germination on the Lupine, tho not 100%. And Susie my method uses no heat. So you have to decide which to try.... lol.. Yup, we gotta make it difficult for you....

Just got these sprouts in 2 days....could hardly believe it... Here's a list of newbies as of this morning:
Salvia turkestanika Pink
Salvia farinacea Blue Bedder
Reseda oderata, I still believe everyone should be growing these little annuals, yum, sooo sweet!!!
Salvia claryssa
Lavatera trimestris Loveliness Mix

Ok , I'll check in later or tomorrow, when I get home I'll check to see what other goodies have sprouted yet today......

Pam, safe trip!!!

Schaff20,

>> no longer wilted. yeah!

Excellent! Whatever you chn aged (less fertilizer?) ... keep doing that!

>> Rick, the soil is fairly coarse and dry.

That should rule out over-watering, root-drowning and anaerobic soil.

>> It's a cheaper priced garden soil with a fertilizer (and lots of twigs!).

Wow. Where I am, anything with the word "soil" in the name is far too heavy and clayey to be used in pots.

But it's good for you if you can buy a LESS expensive mix and still get good drainage and aeration.

Many people pay for a soilless mix to get "sterile" conditions for seedlings, to protect against damping off,but others don't have to bother. Looks like you're in luck.


>> an interesting thing I notice is that the infected plants are near each other in the middle of the table, in the middle of the growing lights. coincidence?

Unnh-oh. I never heard before of anyone able to give seedlings TOO MUCH light! Now that I go back and look at your third photo, the seedlings around the edges show normal low-light leaning and stretching. The ones in the center look very bright in the photo.

What kind of fixture do you have? I can only see part of the end of the fixture. If it is incandescent, or quartz halide (tungsten filament, not arc discharge), you might have a plain old heat problem, and the leaves are cooking! Incandescent bulbs are great for heating, but not so good for illuminating leaves.

If you have plenty of light intensity in the center but too much heat, you could raise the fixture even higher. That will give the seedlings on the edges more light and the center seedlings less light (and less HEAT).

Or maybe rotate a few of the crispy plants to the edges, and move a few of the "green leaners" to the center. If the leaves that are now green turn yellow and die, then yes it's probably too hot.

Kathy would Love some I Have a Pk Of seeds but it just ssays Foxglove No other Info so yes would like some & These I will still Plant Out Back after the frost sure not Blooms this year but maybe Next year.
what type of the Reseda oderata, did you plant I see there is two types when i goggled it. they look very interesting .
Was outside Weeding today & My Legs & arm's will let me know in the morning Maybe even leg gramps'in the Night I can already feel the aches :) got to get a shower, super then off to lay back with a Movie .
GN all

Rick,

Thanks. I rotated the plants as you suggested and put more separation between the middle rows. There are 4 fluorescent bulbs in the fixture. When I put my hand on them after being on all day, they are only slightly warm so there is a tiny bit of heat. Today I moved the light up another notch and didn't water. Will go back to watering (without solution) tomorrow and will also turn the fan back on for air circulation. So far there are no new cases of spots.

Yeah, florescent tubes won't scorch leaves that bad, even in direct contact. Hopefully, having FOUR tubes gives you enough light intensity that it will be OK to hang it even higher. Are they 4 feet long tubes?

So far it does sound like fertilizer/salt burn. Certainly most seedlings don't want much if any added fertilizer, and even then, 1/4 the "recommended strength for houseplants" is the upper limit.

Maybe, being a "soil" mix, they put in enough fertilizer for you to grow a lawn of adult crops with it. Then you added more, and "ouchie". Maybe.

One way that too much fertilizer kills, is to make the soil moisture too salty, meaning ionic strength or osmotic pressure. It literally salinizes a pot, the way a field can become saline if you keep adding fertilizer when there is not enough rain to carry it away. Next step, salt flats.

The plant tries to pull the (fresh) water it needs out of the salty soil, and it just can't, because that would be like "reverse osmosis". Analogous to a human trying to quench thirst with seawater.

can you actually flush water THROUGH the pots, and remove it from the tray with a turkey baster or wet-dry-vac?

Now here is a guess stacked on top of the "maybe", to try to explain why the leaves yellowed first in the center. It was SOMEWHAT warmer there, and also the plants grew faster there and had more leaf area.

Dry air plus leaves = transpiration. The bigger leaves evaporated more water into the air, and pulled more water out of their pots. Then when you watered the dry pots with fertilizer, it made their soil even more salty.

Just a guess. Either way, it sounds like "more water, less fertilizer" for a while is a good direction to keep going. And later, start fertilizing with 1/8th or 1/4 the strength, every other watering or every third. If they need more N,l they'll slow their growth and turn a lighter green./ They recover from that very easily. But recovery from too-much fertilizer is much harder, as dead-spots-on-leaves suggests.

Anyway, if you run the fan and things start wilting, go easy on the fan and think about how to give them cooler air!

BTW, there is also such a thing as nitrogen toxicity for plants. I thought it showed up as twisted leaves, b ut I can't find that online. But don't let any cows graze exclusively on those seedling until they look better! ;-)
"Symptoms of lethal nitrate poisoning include labored breathing, frothing at the mouth, rapid pulse, weakness, diarrhea, frequent urination, muscle tremors, in-coordination and convulsions, collapse and death."

Also, different forms of nitrogen in fertilizer have different effect and toxic thresholds: urea, ammonia, nitrates. Probably the problem is just TOO MUCH fertilizer, but you might look at the label on your soluble fertilizer and see where most of the N comes from. But then I don't know which kind is worst!

Susie, I got mine from Select Seed. Reseda odorata, Mignonette 'Machet', 12-24"X6">. Seeing your post reminded me that there are two different heights, but can't remember much more than that, origonally I got them from T&M Seed, more than 15 years ago. Could you tell me the nursery.com as I would like to find them also... And ref. the foxglove, does the packet say perennial or biennial. If perennial might very well be Foxy, if not is probably biennial and do they show color or list height. (There is another foxglove that is perennial, it's Digitalis grandiflora (I have had the pink in the garden for several years, at 12-18". This year got seedlings of another D.grandiflora, and they are yellow at 30".) but you usually don't see these as that readily available, it's probably the above). Who's the vendor?

I need to correct my above post to 3 days instead of 2 days, sorry, I boofed.
More babies up today, checked when I got home tonight:
Nemisia moederskoent Jies dwarf mix (from S. Africa)
Osteospermum paste mix (from S. Africa)
Ammi visagna
Cynoglossum amabile Chinese Forget-Me-Not 'Mystery Rose'
Salvia claryssa
Scabiosa 'Beaujolais Bonnets'
Centaurea scabiosa

Pix is Digitalis grandiflora...(it has never reseed in the garden), started under lights many moons ago..

Newly germinated as of today: (4 days)
Centaurea imperiallis Sweet Sultan
Lavatera trimestris Pink Blush
Heliotrope arorescens Deep Marine Blue

Hey Susie, does that package have a pix on it, mix colors orm all the same?

And Rick, when are you going to start your babies this season?

Schaff, hope thing are doing good now!

nope Nothing just says foxglove looks as someone had allot in their garden so there was No info on the pack except FOXGLOVE so I will just Plant a few & see if they grow :)

Oh, Ok they were from a trade, duh, I should have figured that one out for myself>>>> Lol. :)

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ HAPPY EASTER ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny brought me some new plants! I have several species of Dianthus, several Nicotiana, Sedums (I move them inside after they germinate), Nigella, and two colors of Nemophila.

In CT, there is still a ton of snow compared to the neighbrs, who have none, and everything is frozen. The kid we met last fall at a local festival actually came and worked while we were away. We never heard from him so assumed he didn't come, what a nice surprise. He repaired a stone wall, but best of all, he made a base for a cement birdbath that for years was at my Mom's. I love what he did-- at first I thought it looked like a sculpture of a head and got my feet wet tramping through snow and ice to get closer. Very cool.

I set up my lights and transplanted almost everything from the 1 flat I brought out, Ceratotheca triloba, Campanula White Clips, Alchemilla Mollis , and Digitalis Camelot White and Pam's Split.

We got home tonight and all is good. The lowgrowing Astra Platycodons are the ones that are about to bloom, some blue, some pink. Kathy, how about yours? They must not be far behind.

BTW, I have yellow Digitalis Grandiflora all over the place, if you want some plants. And I'd love some pink...

Happy Easter!!!

HI...Glad you made it home...nope not on the pllatties yet, am getting ready to transplant and clip...but I do have a Petunis the has an almost open bloom on it. Sorry, I need to get some batteries for the camera.....so no pix for a few days.. Was beautiful here today, mid 60s.I started the yellow grandiflora this winter but I might trade for one that could bloom this season>>>>>. and I can send you a piece of my pink which is also a perenn grandiflora. Info says the yellow is 30"...? The pink is 18-24".

Celene...wow...sounds like the Easter bunny was nice!!! LOL.

New sprouts today:
Felicia True Blue Daisy
Papaver orientalis 'Brilliant Red', with a name like that sounds like it suppose to be a true red....it isn't ..it will be a orange red...

Hope everyone had a good one today!!!

Pix: Delphinium grandiflora, 18", all season, got a bunch of these this season from seed, (cause I wanted pink too...lol.)

Dianthus Zing germinated...

I can send a clump of yellow, I have lots, just love it...

That's a lovely soft yellow. I have purple, as well as D. thapsii, which grows better in some of my less amended, dryer clay areas. That yellow tempts me.