Pointers on seedling.

[Lawrence Croeser]

Good Day,

I have recently planted various seedlings. They germinated in a few days. They are now dying off after about a week. I suspect that my growing medium was to course. The medium I used was potting soil which was very course, lots of organic pieces like bark.

Please suggest what I should keep in mind when planting seedlings. My climate is temperate / subtropical.

Many thanks............Lawrence

[TZ -OH6]

How are they dieing? Seedlings usually have enough stored nutrients to grow for a week or two before stalling if the soil is bad, and then they will just sit there and maybe turn some funny colors. If they die early it is usually disease like damping off, which collapses the base of the stem. the plant looks perfect except for that.


Regular potting mix, even the coarse stuff, is almost always good enough to start seeds, it just may be a little difficult to handle in really small pots. Sometimes it will have a lot of fertilizer in it and burn seedlings, could that be your problem?

[DoubleDogFarm]

Lawrence,

Like TZ mentioned, could be damping off.

I start my seedlings in a peat moss \ perlite mix. 80%-20%

Then when I pot up, I switch to potting mix. Like a mix in this photo.



I also use this potting mix when I direct seed into the garden. Use it to cover the seed because it doesn't crust over.