I personally think that bottom watering is the best route to take. Some places use misters and that's ok too because of the way it's designed. But for home use, and if you can, watering from the bottom seems to work better for me.
Fertilizer.....now there's something that I don't even pretend I know much of. I can only tell you what I do with my plants. :)
I start my plants out in a sterilized growing media, ProMixBX. It is soiless and does a remarkable job for me.
I don't fertilize anything untill it is well established in it's container. My Petunia's for example, grew for almost 2 months with water only, then I started using a liquid fertilizer once a week while the Begonia's were about the same, I waited for them to get nice new top growth before I started fertilizing.
I found in the past that if I fertilized to quickly, i.e., before the plant was established well, I ended up with too much top growth and although the plant took off like a shot in the dark, it was too young to support itself and would fall over.
My Bell Peppers require nothing in the beginning except a little manure mixed in the soil before they're transplanted. They are best left alone until they start to set fruit. Once they've started making their peppers, I use a manure tea and that's all they receive during their entire life span.
My tomato plants are still growing in ProMixBX with no fertilizers used. They are now about 6 to 8 inches tall, sturdy, healthy and are a nice green. I won't fertilize them until they go into the garden. The soil there has manure in it and I won't touch them again untill they've gotten use to their new home. After about 2 weeks, I will side dress them with calcium and once again when I see they are setting fruit.
I think the biggest mistake I made when fertilizing my seedlings was thinking of them as "Plants". They aren't "Plants", yet....they're seedlings. I try to think of them as "Baby's" and not "Children". I wouldn't feed a baby table food or solid foods, and so I try to keep a lid on the fertilizer until my baby seedlings are big enough to digest grown up food. It's so easy to want to rush them and get them going, I know, but it just doesn't work out for the best or in the long run.
Something I've learned to do is research my particular plant before I do much of anything along the lines of fertilizers. Doing that has saved me a headache later on when I wonder what went wrong. :)
under the lights
Thanks Erynne, I only show the good ones. lol
I like your seedlings and your set-up. Every available cookie sheet etc., used eh. :) I have some seedlings too but not near as many as you as I'm space challenged.
We also find that when visiting gardening centres the plants seem to hop into the cart. I think they've got our number. :)
Joan
Cookie sheets are not just for cookies anymore!!!!!!!
I've been germinating like crazy under lights, and my earliest this year was brugmansia seeds. This link shows a pic: http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/588929/
I got huge germination this year from my salpiglossis, I'm going to be giving a lot away soon. Delphiniums did surprisingly well, and so did the schizanthus, after a bit of a problem at first.
I'll take a few more pics soon, gotta post them in my journal too.
the brugs look really good andy, WTG!
Your brugs look really nice. I've often wanted to start some, but haven't gotten around to it. I hope when I do, give them a try, they come out as nice as yours.
From what I've heard, their blooms are very fragrant.
Here's a shot of one of my light set-ups, with some seedlings I transplanted on the weekend. This is the 'cool room' in the basement, about 60-65F, ideal for growing on.
Upstairs in my spare bedroom I have another set of lights for starting seeds. I'm being careful not to get carried away, because I don't have a lot of room and I'm trying to grow a lot of different things. So, just a few of each.
I started some salpiglossis and got so many I hardly know what to do with them all! This tray (right) has 72 healthy seedlings and I've got another batch of at least double that many yet to transplant. I'll be handing out 9-paks in May, or may even sell them at our neighbourhood garage sale.
On the left are schizanthus. Love these guys in July!
Erynne
I have got to come over and see all your plant babies sometime soon!
Rhonda, I think you mean you want me to come to your house and bring you some of each, lol. They sure did grow alot in the last bit.
Darrell, I don't know how missed your post! It definitely makes sense not to treat seedlings like big plants, that's why I was doing water only until I saw (or see for those that don't have them yet) at least the 2nd set of true leaves. Then it's the 1/4 strength fert. There's alot of info out there about the "how & when to's" of fertilizing seedlings and some of just confused me because some said do and some said wait. So far, whatever I'm doing seems to be working because nothing is getting leggy or top heavy. Well, the Silene is floppy but ya can't win 'em all, lol. Maybe I'll just stay at 1/4 strength fert once per week until they head outdoors, which won't be much longer.
Then there's the hardening off business which is new to me....sigh.
Erynne
Erynne, we'll have to give winter sowing a try next year. Joan
brugcrazy,
I don't know anything about brugs. From some of the posts I've seen, they are pretty hard to grow.
I'll give it a try though, if you're willing to give me some assistance along the way.
Joan and Erynne - I tried some winter sowing this year for the first time. So far, so good. I have many cute little (little being the operative word since I didn't get around to it until February) sprouts starting now, with more appearing every day. LOL Of course, having sprouts and keeping them alive and growing long enough to get them planted into the gardens are two very different things aren't they?
Brenda (echoes), if you're checking this thread at all, many of those winter sown seeds are from the ones that you sent me last fall. I'm just tickled pink to see them pushing their tiny little green heads up through the soil already :-)
--Ginny
Hi Ginny,
I too, tried winter sowing and have 20+ containers out there. I'd say about half have really good germination, 5 have mediocre germination and the rest have none. The winner of the race was Callistephus chinensis (Aster Pavlova Dk. Blue) which now are onto their 2nd set of true leaves. Second place goes to Iberis sempevirens (Candytuft). Verbena bonariensis and Thyme tied for third. I'm keeping notes on what did well and what didn't so I don't waste my time with the no-shows next year.
Erynne
I think I have about 36 - 2 L pop bottles going, and around 1/2 have some stage of germination happening. The run-away winners for me were Lavatera trimestris ‘Ruby Regis’ and 'Silver Cup', and some red poppy, closely followed by Polemoneum caeruleum in second place and Lychnis coronaria ‘Angel’s Blush’ in third. Ditto on the note keeping.
--Ginny
Thanks for posting your successes Ginny. It's good to know what did well and what's worth trying for next year!
