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Mistakes made in 08

gardenkiller

gardenkiller

Well AJ and Potawie suggested it and I think it's a great idea so here goes. Everyone, with the idea to help others not repeat your mistakes, post some stupid things you have done this season (so far).




Mine is starting annums in January and leaving them in cups until today. The ones that lived through that torture were so root bound that they looked to be in a white cup when I removed them from their red plastic cups. Also, planting out without looking at the forecast. Yeah I looked at the temps at night and such, but neglected to see the possible hail warning. I guess you live and learn.
 
My mistakes !!!

Started my plants to early and to many it was 2 hours watering time and reporting of 70 tomatoes (I need only 20) and 140 peppers was a chore.
But the biggest mistake was that I put match to each pot as I have read on this or other site, suppose to give sulfur supplementation (either matches were wrong or to much of sulfur but my plants lost leaves almost all,(leaves become wrinkled and small -they were in distress BIG TIME , it put my peppers at least one month behind,but it was OK since I started to early
I will have to repeat experiment with matches ,but I had to report plants and their root system was "missing" in area where matches were placed.
Everything end up OK, but if you read something on the internet, and don't have collaboration of facts from other members ( be careful ) don't repeat my mistake and try on one or 2 plants.(If I wouldn't run out of matches I would suffer bigger loss) lol.. and my motivation was to make better for plants.

Other mistake was hardening ---not enough time to accommodate to strong sun ,ending with few "bleached" leaves.
 
As always I started too many plants, and too early and got major aphid problems. I also have a bunch of plants which look overfertilized with the new growth all burnt but I haven't found the source of that problem yet.
I also gave my overwintered plants too much light in the beginning instead of letting them go semi dormant. I think this really helped the aphid population grow
 
quarentine all new plants, even if they were a gift your mom *really* wants to keep...i told her she'd never hear the end of it if i got aphids again, and she's yet to stop hearing about it... also, don't go on weeklong trips after not quarentining new plants...
 
I tried the match thing and those pots are my worst performing plants. Never again.

Over watered a few plants.

Rushed to get them outside. I should have left them inside a few more weeks.

Also I should have used a flame thrower on all the damn rolly-polly (sowbugs) in the garden. I have watched them devastate a few of the plants I have in the ground. I need to let them get at least 8" tall before they go into the ground or they will be devoured in one night.
 
This could be a loooooong thread.

* First of all over-watering

* Aiming a powerful spray bottle at little seedlings

* Transplanting too soon

* Not hardening them off properly

* Not keeping track of the varieties I had already started
 
I didn't treat the seeds before germinating.
I didn't properly label all of my plants.
I didn't keep them apart from one another.
I didn't use any fungicides.

That's pretty much it. not like I did something wrong, just didn't do some of the right things.
 
toooo much fertilize...trying to get a head start on the growing season, I used a combination of fertilizers in the soil when I translpanted to 5 gallon containers....results....aphid attraction and some burnt plants...
 
And, to characterize most responses, lack of patience is a problem growing chiles.

This is common with chile growers, me included. I have more time to recover from impatience because I grow year round.
 
Ditto what Willard said. I rushed the season. Started too early. I had to manage plants too large indoors. This led to needing to get them outdoors too fast even when temps weren't ideal. This combined with crazy cold weather resulted in death of some of my plants which I worked hard to grow.

PATIENCE is most important. Start 10-12 weeks before, set them out 1-2 weeks after typical recommended set out date and you eliminate 90% of the issues I described. Also, I doubt you lose anything from the process.

Chris
 
I'm not sure there is a mistake I didn't make!

Wrong kind of potting soil.
Too little fertilizer/too much fertilizer
Not enough water/too much water
Lights not close enough/lights too close
Too slow to see aphids and get the plants treated
Bringing plants in because of a frost and setting them where a cat could eat the tops off
Repotting into 2-litre Mt. Dew bottles

And it isn't even June yet!

Mike
 
My biggest mistake was that after I germinated my seeds in a paper towel and put them in potting soil I DIDN'T KEEP THE POTS WARM ENOUGH FOR THE SEEDLINGS TO GROW.
 
1 - Started seeds too early too.
2 - Too little fertilizer in the older plants, too much for the new.
3 - Cut the heat down too low when I started my 2nd set of seeds. Near 0 germ.
4 - Too much bug spray on some (spider mites & fungus gnats)
5 - Waiting too long to pot up.
6 - Not enough light.

I'm just glad all have survived all the mistakes I made.
 
Surprisingly this year, I did not make as many mistakes as I did previous years. What did George say, "Fool me once, Fool me again..." lol.
Here are few of the strategies I used, to avoid problems that you guys encountered.
1. Do not feed seedlings any type of artificial fertilizers if you can. Earth worm tea and diluted kelp juice work wonders on seedlings. Spray epsom salt solution once a week.
2. If the plants are getting too big, cut the top, trim the roots, get rid of some of the leaves, and repot. I have seen wonderful results with that. See my blog. I am a true believer on cutting the main stem.
3. Make sure seedlings have enough moisture all the time. I am guilty as well, I have left seedlings to wilt many times by mistakes, those seelings took long time to recover, and they did not catch up on size to other seedlings.

Now...if some of you can teach me how to grow rocotto sucessfully, that would really get my spirit up.
 
I'll add starting seeds too early for the conditions as there was not enough light or warmth and if there was any warmth it only came from the radiators for part of the day so they always had an inconsistent temperature. I never took them off the windowsill at night either, they must have been so cold when I was all wrapped up in my duvet but still shivering.

And I did exactly the same with my Rocotos Sanj, mine don't like a lot of sun or heat though.
 
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