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seeds Opps? seedlings flopped over..HELP

Maxsack331

Maxsack331

The seeds that I planted about 2 weeks ago are doing great, most of them had come up, and so I had went out to get some Epson salts since I have been reading about it so much on here, and just to test it out I took about 2 drops (the label says 7 drops per plant each watering time) of MG indoor potting fertilizer 10-10-10.. so it was really really diluted and just a few grains of Epson salts and shook them up in a regualar sized spray bottle.. gave all my plants a good spraying and my mom's tomato seedlings also.

so I found a few of my mom's and my seedlings bent over and limp, and the soil was dry so I sprayed them again with some water (just tap/well water, measured the pH and it was 7, tested it a few times and it didn't change, and tested a few other things and it worked well, because it seemed unlikely at first that the tap water would be exactly at 7, but I guess it is.)

so anyways here are some pics, first pic is of the first batch of plants that I started 3 weeks before the seedlings.. so they are just over a month old about and doing great... although the leaves seem a little wrinkly, but most of them are fine, or great actually and have a TON of new leaves popping up all over the places, super compact

my main question is what did I do wrong with the seedligns.. a lot of them all had 1st or 2nd set of true leaves so I figured such a tiny tiny spray of some ferts and salts would be ok for them.. or at least they would be able to withstand it...

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Those jiffys can be a real problem with either being too dry or to wet. Yours look very dry, I would bottom water with straight water
You shouldn't really fertilize a very dry plant. Did you spray the plants with the light on maybe?
 
POTAWIE said:
Those jiffys can be a real problem with either being too dry or to wet. Yours look very dry, I would bottom water with straight water
You shouldn't really fertilize a very dry plant. Did you spray the plants with the light on maybe?
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Ya I agree they look very dry! Are you using a dome lid to lock in moisture? If not I recommend it! Use straight water when the pellets start to dry up
 
The best way to see if they need watering while in the Jiffy pods is by feel. Pick them up, it won't take long for you to learn the weight of a dry one and a wet one. I would do what POTAWIE suggests and water the heck out of them from the bottom by pouring a couple of cups of water into the holding container. Keep doing it until the pods are all soaked.
 
yea I just checked and all of them were really really dry, I had sprayed them to make them moist before and they were good, but that was a few hours ago, and they were already really dry, so I just soaked them all, I keep it about 83-85 degrees in there during the day, and 80 at night, might turn it down now that almost all of them have come up, still waiting on a few to pop up that I planted last week...

POTAWIE said:
Those jiffys can be a real problem with either being too dry or to wet. Yours look very dry, I would bottom water with straight water
You shouldn't really fertilize a very dry plant. Did you spray the plants with the light on maybe?
Click to expand...

yea, why should I not spray them when the lights are on? I didn't know that would be bad.. what does it do?

megahot said:
Ya I agree they look very dry! Are you using a dome lid to lock in moisture? If not I recommend it! Use straight water when the pellets start to dry up
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I have a dome lid, but I thought once they pop up I should take it off, I have them in a shelve that is pretty closed up, I have a mini 6" fan in there to move some air around for 15min 7 times a day but other than that, it's pretty insulated and I don't mind watering it every day to keep them moist, I'm around...


----oh and also, I just checked my larger Bulgarian Carrot (taller plant in the background in the first pic) and I thought I had seen it before, and I was right, there is a flower on it already.. I read the other day on here that I should just pinch them off until they get bigger, or if I don't it will most likely stop growing and put it's "effort" into growing the pods... that sound right.. I don't need pods right now, I just want the plants to be big and strong for spring, it would be cool to get a pod, but growth is more important
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oooo.. ok, I guess I will have to stop spraying them during the day, I have noticed that a lot lately, and was wondering what was happening.. you guys think that after the good watering I gave them, they should pick back up?... they just really fell over today/last night
 
if I had to use Jiffys I would quit growing...another example of why NOT to use them...

as has been said, they need water baaaaaaddddd....

another thing is the netting on them...you really need to remove that before transplanting no matter what they say...it impedes root growth...

sorry about your misfortune...I hope they recover well....
 
some will make it, maybe not all... I had one a lot smaler than that tipped over twice, I changed the mix and there doing better now. Good luck.
 
The Jiffy peat pellets are for seed starting, not a growing medium. Once your seeds have sprouted, get them transplanted so their roots can do their thing! Jiffy pellets have worked great for me..Cut that netting away and transplant them as soon as you can...

AlabamaJack said:
if I had to use Jiffys I would quit growing...another example of why NOT to use them...

as has been said, they need water baaaaaaddddd....

another thing is the netting on them...you really need to remove that before transplanting no matter what they say...it impedes root growth...

sorry about your misfortune...I hope they recover well....
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Some of us have to use Jiffy as we don't all have the same time and resources as everybody else....
 
well thanks everyone for the help, a few of them have already perked up, but I think that the majority of the cherry bombs that I had that took the worst hit won't make it, but I'll just start over with them I guess.. lesson learned ..

and I didn' know that I should have really transplanted them right away once they sprouted, I thought I was suppose to wait a little bit, but I'll get the rest of them into the party cups and into the grow tent hopefully tomorrow, just need to hook up an outlet box in the basement, (only option for power down there now), and yes I took the netting off of them when I transplanted my other ones.

and I like using the Jiffy Pellets, they are usually really good as far as being able to germinate seeds, I just will give them a nice soak once a day or every other day until they pop, then just transplant them into the party cups


and as far as those flowers go on the larger pepper plant I have (found another 1 or 2 of them), should I pinch them until it gets larger or just let them flower and it should keep growing.. I usually just let them flower but then again, I've never started this early and it was summer anyways when they flowered
 
I haven't used the jiffy pellets but I've used jiffy pots and they have the same problem, they dry out extremely quickly. I just threw a stack of them away and won't ever use them again. Forget about your plants for a couple days and you might find them dead.

I've never really understood the party cup thing either. You can get 20 of these 3.25' pots for $2.50 and they can be reused for several years. http://www.greenhous...rd-plastic-pots You can get 450 of them for $32.

Get the matching trays and they're easy to carry, move around and water (just pick up a tray of seedlings and set it in water for 15 minutes). They use space more efficiently because they're square and they don't tip over easily like cups and you don't have to bother drilling any holes.
 
Jiffys always seem great at first until you find a superior product. I still use them for tomatoes and other plants with aggresive root systems but for chiles they really aren't great in my opinion
 
Maxsack331 said:
and as far as those flowers go on the larger pepper plant I have (found another 1 or 2 of them), should I pinch them until it gets larger or just let them flower and it should keep growing.. I usually just let them flower but then again, I've never started this early and it was summer anyways when they flowered
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Depends on who you talk to, but I say pinch them, especially for annuums. Leaving the flowers on when they're small doesn't seem to slow chinenses and frutescens as much but it seems to really slow annuums imo.
 
well I ended up pinching the flowers after doing a search, found 13 flowers on it, didn't see all the tiny ones..
(edit: hmm good to know Avon, thanks!)

but yeah , I think next year I will just use other types of starting soil, but I just had some of those jiffy pellets around, and didn't no any better, and as far as the party cups, I just saw that a bunch of people used them and I couldn't find any cheap solutions around here for other pots (and didn't really think about ordering them off line) and I already bought 80 cups, just going to use an old soldering iron and poke small holes into the bottom/bottom rim.. next year, not bad though for a first year growing inside, can't believe the Bulgarian Carrot already had so many flowers on them.

and Potawie, it's funny you say that about the tomato plants, because my mom's tomato plants that we left in the pellets too long (didn't have a lot of time, but am transplanting everything tomorrow) but their roots actually grew into their neighbors pellets.. its pretty crazy)

thanks for the help everyone I will be sure to check up on them more often, and start some more seeds after transplanting tomorrow and I get a total count on all the varities I have that are growing well (I want about 4 of each plant, and I have 15 different varities)
 
meinchoh said:
The Jiffy peat pellets are for seed starting, not a growing medium. Once your seeds have sprouted, get them transplanted so their roots can do their thing! Jiffy pellets have worked great for me..Cut that netting away and transplant them as soon as you can...

Some of us have to use Jiffy as we don't all have the same time and resources as everybody else....
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whoa bro...don't get your panties in a wad...just stating my opinion which I am allowed to do...

as far as the economics of it go...100 jiffy pellets are 14.99....http://www.amazon.co...26677695&sr=1-1

a 10 Qt bag of hoffmans seed starting mix is $4.15.......... http://www.amazon.co...68&sr=1-1-fkmr2 and is enough to fill two 72 cell trays....total 144 seeds....

make up your own mind...
 
I think that is what I am going with next year, is the Hoffmans, or actually, since I will be needing to plant another 30-40 seeds or so, I think I will just get that now, I was going to grab some jiffy pellets from the local Agway, but they are like $9 for 20 or something crazy like that, and I have the Hoffman's virmiculite which is awesome, probably going to order that now actually

--just grabbed some peatmoss and the seed starting mix, was looking around for peat moss too to help retain some moisture in the potting mix I have.. since the water drains really well, but I think it drains a little too well since I have to water my plants that are in the cups a lot, and I don't really want to add much more soil.. right now the mix is about 1 part MG potting soil, 1part organic soil mix(just had some lying around that is really dark but it's really heavy so I don't want a lot of it) 1 part virmiculite, and 1 part perlite.. seems to work good for the most part.. that sound ok? I would like to mix around what I have here, eventually I will go to a local property that is part of a small river flood area where I hunt and they have soil that is pretty much competely worm caseing, with so many worms it's rediculous, so I will be loading up as many buckets as I can fit into my bosses truck when it gets a little warmer out, and I also have a swamp/pond (depending on the time of year) that the soil in there once I sift it out is insainly rich, it's like steroids for the plants we've put it on before, just filtering all the twigs and some broken glass from the previous owner is a huge pain, but I want good pepper plants this year :rofl:

but as far as soil goes, wasn't too sure about getting it because around here they sell it, and any other soils/bags of anything really, for at least $10-20 for a bag, and 99% of the time it's MG, and the only Hoffman stuff they had was the virmiculite
 
depending on how many plants you are going to grow, if you are close to them, these people may be a good choice for buying soil from...it's a heck of a lot cheaper by the yard...plus it's organic and recycled...but it's probably not worth it for just a few plants...be aware when using MG soils...the nitrogen in them is used up pretty quickly so you get a good green flush to start with but in a month or so, the plants will really slow down on their growth...

http://www.greencycle.net/residential/enriched-top-soil-residential/
 
nice I am pretty close to them, I stumbled across that site last night, but didn't really look at them, I'll check them out when it's time to fill all the big buckets up.

but thanks for the headsup on the MG, I have noticed a slowng down on growth for a lot of the plants. I bought some bone meal and blood meal, I sprinkled a little, tiny bit of bone meal when I first got it a week and a half ago, and I know that it doesn't disolve well into the soil, so when I transplant them all today I'm going to mix in some blood and bone meal..

I usually have trouble with fertilizing and I haven't over fertilized for the most part when I do it during the summer, but last year I had enough fertilizer I think where the plants were really thick and green but didn't really produce many pods until the very end, and they were not that hot or big, and that was really once I had run out of the fertilizer.. so not going to make that mistake again..

my question is I read that your suppose to keep "N" and Potassium numbers pretty much even, but since there isn't any posassium in the bone meal of blood meal.. what should I do? I read that everyone puts the blood meal and bone meal but nothing about anything else. should I be set just using that until I pot outside? I also have some MG indoor liquid plant fert. that I can use very very diluted every once and a while that is 10-10-10.. but should I just add the bone and blood into the soil when transplanting them and use the liquid when I need to until I pot them up again?
 
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