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seeds Seedlings and Light

wordwiz said:
AJ,

Yeah, send me the nitty-gritty details.
By Monday, I should have most of the seeds I ordered and be ready to try your advice!
Click to expand...

OK. Here goes.
Seed Starting Soil: Hoffman Seed Starter (5.95 USD for 10 Dry Quarts)

Containers: 9 ounce clear plastic dixie cups with three 1/4 inch holes randomly drilled in the bottom

Seeds: Little Elf, Marbles, and Largo Purple (purples never germinated) from Tomato Growers Supply Company in Fort Myers, Florida.

Water: Used only distilled water for all watering and fertilize mixing

Filled cups with seed starter soil, tapped cup to level the soil, used tweezers to handle seeds and "push" them about 1/4 inch deep, then used tip of tweezers to cover them. Watered in with mister of distilled water. Misted several times to keep moist several times through the night (planted at 1800 hrs).

The seed germinator I built was at a constant 86F when I put them in. I am using a remote bulb thermostat set on 3 degrees variance to keep the temperature in the germinator at 86F.

Misted the cups every two hours the next day to keep soil moist but not soaking. Started watering the third day and watered twice daily (morning and night) for the next month.

8 November 1st seed sprouted. 10 seeds sprouted by 13 November. All Marbles and Little Elf's. No Largo Purple have sprouted to this day. Lost one marble due to seed shell staying on seedling.

Fertilized first time on 25 November using Botanicare Pro, Pure Blend (Grow) 3-1.5-4 (1/2 oz to 1 gallon water). Liberally watered with this every 7 days since 25 November.

Transplanted 9 seedlings into 6" pots 4 December. Made just enough potting soil for 9 6" containers for transplant using miracle grow potting mix (I know you guys hate it) and mixed in 1/4 cup Jim Johnson, Seedman, Dry Formula Tomato/Pepper Plant Food. Carefully took seedlings out of 9 ounce cups (some roots were already growing out the holes in the bottom) and placed them in the 6 inch pots and added potting mix until the first set of leaves were almost covered. Watered in.

Have been watering once a day since transplant.

Not much else to tell I can think of.
 
Dang Omri.........that is going to work
 
Omri said:
Here's the setup in use.
uplightka7.jpg


I'll deal with the cosmetics later.
Click to expand...

:clap::clap: great idea Omri
 
Thanks, it means a lot. :rolleyes:
BTW, see that glow around the lights? they're not the source, the light goes only down.
That's actually the aluminum foil working. :cool:
 
AJ,

Not much stuff that I can see missing. The distilled water and good soil may be what I'm lacking. I'm not sure exactly what mix I got to sow the out the seeds in, but Don did say to use a screen (like one that covers a window) to clean out the bigger pieces.

I use a waterbed heater, which I presume is going to be correct to +/- a degree or so. However, as far as misting every couple of hours, I have to draw the line there. I'm going to go to bed and sleep for a few hours in a row each night (at least seven, if I can).

Another thing I may be doing wrong is keeping the soil too damp. It reads like your soil is moist, but not wet. I'm use to dealing with plants in the ground - turn the sprinkler on and let it run until the top 1/4 inch is muddy. Geez, when I was younger, we would water tobacco beds using a pump that would move 5,000 gallons of water an hour. We would drive along at about 2 mph and cover everything. I can see me trying to use that in a 2x3 ft. box!

I'm impressed that roots were growing out the bottom - that seems to make a big difference when it comes time to move them. If the plant is almost rootbound, IME it doesn't go through any shock being moved. This spring, planting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc., they didn't wilt, they kept on growing.

BTW, we are supposed to have a massive snowstorm, followed by rain. I may just collect that water and use it (after warming it up to room temperature) rather than distilled water.

I'll try to keep a log of what I do. I may even try some experiments such as using dirt rather than starting mix.
 
wordwiz, why would you have to mist them so often? Your waterbed heater may be hotter than you think if they are drying out that quick. My two waterbed heaters were not accurate at all, on the lowest setting they were well over 100 degrees so I put them on a remote thermostat. Do you have a thermometer on the top of the soil?

Dale
 
Dale,

The reference to misting every couple of hours was because AJ said that it what he did. I would tend to mist them once a day, or lightly mist them twice.

I still sleep on a waterbed and the temps don't seem to vary. I do need to get a thermometer and stick it in the box to see what it reads, though.

Mike
 
Dale/Mike,

Don't laugh but I take a diuretic for blood pressure and have to get up 2 or 3 times a night so I check my seedlings while I am up. Might as well take advantage of the situation.
 
wordwiz said:
I still sleep on a waterbed and the temps don't seem to vary. I do need to get a thermometer and stick it in the box to see what it reads, though.Mike
Click to expand...

The waterbed has a lot more thermal mass than your germinator and the heater could be running at 180F to get water temp up in a reasonable time.

Measure temps carefully or you know nothing.....
 
I would just put the plants on the waterbed with me. That way all you have to do is roll over (carefully if it's not waveless) and mist them anytime you wake. The temps would be within the right parameters.
Last year I just kept lights (cfls) on them during the day for heat from above, (like the sun) and they did just fine.
 
First Marbles Flower

I am tickled right now. It ia 4:30 am and I just checked my seedlings. They will be 7 weeks old tomorrow and I have my first flower.

121907firstmarblesfloweik8.jpg
[/IMG]

:)
 
Impressive. I have a couple of plants from seeds that were sowed seven months ago that I'm waiting for flowers. Okay, they had some when I dug them up just before the first freeze but they have not responded as well as I would have hoped. The aphids/mites have not helped and I'm convinced that city water is not the best to use, though it worked great in the outdoor garden this summer.
 
Omri,

I can't complain about trying to save plants. The hab that was loaded with green pods ended up giving a hair over 100 ripe peppers, about 1/2 of them as good a size if they had stayed in the garden for another month (in 90 degree heat).

No doubt, it is my lack of experience. I've never, ever raised anything besides some spider plants inside, so this is a learning experience. But as Grandpa use to say, I'm not going to learn any younger.

Mike
 
Nice job AJ. And a nice looking plant. Guess I need to get it in gear and start planting some seeds soon. Seem to be behind the eight compared to alot of ya'll.
 
Pcola...the seeds I started are going to be house plants and are just a "test" case to see if the germinator I built and all the "stuff" I used works for germination and seedling growth. I will not start germinating seeds for outside until the middle/end of January. If you start now and it takes 8 weeks to get the seedlings ready, you are talking transplanting seedlings the middle to end of February. That would be a little too soon for Pensacola since the last frost date is the middle to end of March. And, you have to remember, some of the members here are Aussies where it is just now getting to be summer.
 
AlabamaJack said:
Pcola...the seeds I started are going to be house plants and are just a "test" case to see if the germinator I built and all the "stuff" I used works for germination and seedling growth. I will not start germinating seeds for outside until the middle/end of January. If you start now and it takes 8 weeks to get the seedlings ready, you are talking transplanting seedlings the middle to end of February. That would be a little too soon for Pensacola since the last frost date is the middle to end of March. And, you have to remember, some of the members here are Aussies where it is just now getting to be summer.
Click to expand...


Ok I'm understandiing whats going on. Didn't dawn on me that some ya'll would be growing plants for the inside of the house. That would make sense thou. I guess I just need to be patience and just start getting prepared and prepped until it is time to start planting seeds. And keep reading the posts on this forum to get all kinds of great info that will come in handy.:lol:
 
PcolaHot said:
Ok I'm understandiing whats going on. Didn't dawn on me that some ya'll would be growing plants for the inside of the house. That would make sense thou. I guess I just need to be patience and just start getting prepared and prepped until it is time to start planting seeds. And keep reading the posts on this forum to get all kinds of great info that will come in handy.:lol:
Click to expand...
All my plants are indoors, I have an entire room for germination. :lol:
 
AJ,

I pretty much followed your recipe. Okay, I sort of followed. I probably used a different potting soil - it was recommended by a garden store who hs great luck with it. And instead of using clear Dixie cups, I used white styrofoam. I can't see that making much difference, as the plants will stay in their germinator (an old double-lined toy box with a waterbed mattress heater set to 85 degrees, covered with glass). I used a tweezers to put the seeds in the PS, though instead of pushing them down, I covered them with another 1/4 of PS. This leaves about three inches of stuff for them to grow into.

Watered,using a sprayer so as not to disturb the soil but yet wet it well. No lights yet, as the seeds are "under cover," so to speak.

Sowed 38 types. I know it is early, but with the luck I have had, this is pretty much a test. Except for one variety, I have at least 15 seeds of each one left. If this experiment works, I can always use up another seed, but I have the room inside to handle that many 3-gallon containers. I have to have ripe (ready to pick and eat) peppers by August 1, as I am hoping to have display at the County Fair and pass out samples.

As an aside, we had our Christmas Party last night, and I had a few Habs and Jalapenos that were ready for eating. This one guy grabbed two of the Habs and a Jala. I tried to tell him the habs were hot but being the macho man he thinks he is, he didn't care. I asked him later on if he ate the peppers - he said he took a bite of the hab and it would not have been hot had he not also put some BBQ sauce (Bull's Eye) on a chicken wing and that made the hab too hot to eat!

Okay and whatever.

Merry Christmas!

Mike
 
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