Just started my indoor garden

[emerald7]

I just planted the first set of my plants, so my indoor organic container garden has finally started, after much ado and research. Today I planted 4 regular basil, 1 Thai basil, and 2 cilantro in terracotta pots, in a mixture of coarse sand, potting soil, compost, composted cow manure, composted peat humus, and a little fertilizer. I'm growing them under bright full spectrum fluorescent lights.

I didn't know until I had already gotten the plants that cilantro is one that doesn't like being transplanted, and I wouldn't have tried to do it from a plant if I had known that, but oh well. The cilantro plants visibly did not like being transplanted... their leaves all drooped and they really seemed stressed. I hope they will recover in several days.

The basil plants seemed chilled out about being transplanted and seemed to visibly perk up when I put the new dirt around them. So I think they will be OK.

Tomorrow I will start my dill seedlings, and next week I'll plant the rest of the plants (perennials).

I already measured (height, width, # leaves, etc.) all the plants I got when I first brought them home, and took pictures of each one, so I can have concrete info to see how they are progressing. I think I'll give them 40 days (10 days to recover from being transplanted plus 30 days to grow), then take some more measurements and pics to see how they are doing.

[bigdoug]

I did not know that about cilantro. I've always transplanted mine, and they did fine. I never really notice how my veggies transplant at first because when I am done with transplanting everything and have them all tucked in for the long hall I try to leave them alone for a few days. Otherwise I obsess if one or two start looking a little puny and then I worry too much if I'm doing something wrong when all it comes down to in the end is some seeds just grow bad plants, plain and simple.

[emerald7]

I did not know that about cilantro. I've always transplanted mine, and they did fine. I never really notice how my veggies transplant at first because when I am done with transplanting everything and have them all tucked in for the long hall I try to leave them alone for a few days. Otherwise I obsess if one or two start looking a little puny and then I worry too much if I'm doing something wrong when all it comes down to in the end is some seeds just grow bad plants, plain and simple.

One of the cilantro plants rallied fine, and the other one looks like it is recovering slowly. That's good to know you haven't had a problem with cilantro. I also saw transplanting cautions about dill... did you ever transplant any dill?

[emerald7]

I did not know that about cilantro. I've always transplanted mine, and they did fine. I never really notice how my veggies transplant at first because when I am done with transplanting everything and have them all tucked in for the long hall I try to leave them alone for a few days. Otherwise I obsess if one or two start looking a little puny and then I worry too much if I'm doing something wrong when all it comes down to in the end is some seeds just grow bad plants, plain and simple.

Lol yeah I see what you mean... It's easy to watch them too much. I'll try to take your advice.

[bigdoug]

I've always ground started dill. I use it mostly for pickling and I've found that it grows so much faster than the things I'm pickling that I try to give my cucumbers and such a little head start so the dill will be ready at the same time as the veggies. When you use just dill seed, it's no problem. But I like to use weed as well so I plant later to sync everything up.

But as robust as the average dill plant is, I can't see why it would be any more dainty about being transplanted as any other herb. But, if the conventional wisdom says otherwise, well there's probably a reason it's become conventional.

[emerald7]

8 days after transplanting, the cilantro plants pretty much had keeled over... they were the least healthy ones I got out of all of them... I guess that fact combined with the 'dislike of transplanting' maybe did it. Anyway I cut a few usable leaves and dumped out the rest of the pots. Maybe I will try to do some cilantro seeds.

My dill seeds have sprouted, after only 5 days. Yesterday my 3 little dill sprouts grew an inch in about 24 hours. So those are looking good.

Some kind of mushrooms sprouted in one of the dill cups... I was tempted to let them grow to see what they would turn into out of curiosity, but decided to toss it out to keep it from spreading to anything else.

[rainbowgardener]

Mushrooms sprouting in the cups suggests overwatering or at least that the soil was holding too much moisture, staying too wet. That may have been what did in your cilantro. Cilantro is a desert plant that wants to be very well drained and have the soil dry out a bit between waterings. If you can grow mushrooms there, you can't grow cilantro; they have opposite requirements.

[emerald7]

Mushrooms sprouting in the cups suggests overwatering or at least that the soil was holding too much moisture, staying too wet. That may have been what did in your cilantro. Cilantro is a desert plant that wants to be very well drained and have the soil dry out a bit between waterings. If you can grow mushrooms there, you can't grow cilantro; they have opposite requirements.

The dill cups are totally different containers (small peat pots) that were watered on a different schedule than the cilantro was. The cilantro was watered a lot less, and was in a different pot (larger terra cotta) with more drainage and more sand, etc.