The cubby hole in the desk is not the best place to store seeds. It's
too warm. If you air condition your house in warm weather it's also
probably too humid. However, tomatoes are weeds and the seeds last a
long time. Put a few on a damp paper towel and keep it damp. Check them
to see if they germinate. If you were talking about lettuce or peppers,
I'd say throw them out. Tomato seeds can put up with a lot, but it's
best to check them before depending on them.

10:1 clorox is heavy. Many growers use solutions in the 1-5% range for
sanitation. Wear gloves and keep some vinegar handy in case you get some
on your hands. Do it all in a well ventilated area. An alternative is
hydrogen peroxide, 10:1 using the 3% stuff you get in the grocery store.
It's easier on your hands and lungs and you can do it indoors.

Garden soil is full of weeds and fungi (not all harmful). Use commercial
growing mix. You can get it most anywhere. It's not expensive. It's been
sterilized. It's cheaper than trying to do it yourself.

You don't describe exactly what happens to your plants. Is it damping
off? You can reduce damping off dramatically by just putting a fan in
the room where you're starting your seedlings. The air circulation will
remove humid air at the air-soil interface where the damping off fungus
takes hold of the plants.

As far as growing the tomatoes, most indoor growing arrangements don't
present enough light to the plants to keep them from getting leggy. The
solution is to put them in a south window (I assume you're in the
northern hemisphere) or use really bright lights. Keep the room air
temperature cool, 50-60 F, but it wouldn't hurt to heat the root zone.
This will encourage root growth and slow down the upper plant growth.
The top of the plant will catch up quickly when it's transplanted.





Ralph D. wrote:
Well... it's moving into the latter stages of winter here and a few weeks
away from an early jump on starting seeds. That means it's time to do the
annual delurk.

I have had persistent problems starting veggie seeds the last few years,
especially tomatoes, and after much prodding finally talked to the
CoOperative Agent about it. The feeling is that I may have a fungus around
and I am recontaminating things as I go along. I have decided to not use any
seeds from last year (I never knew about the fermenting deal) and have
decided to order new from Tomato Growers... I grow no hybrids and I will
likely do a dozen of about 7 varieties (one of my old ones I cannot find,
Spindley) but the packs comes in 30's and I'm wondering if the leftovers
will still be good for next year? I know that I have used year old seeds
before, but is it normal or was I lucky?

To the extreme on that... I just found an unopened pack of Seeds Of Change
Brandywine pinks (best one out there) that is dated as 'packed for 1997'
LOL! It's unopened, and has been under a stack of literature in a little
cubby hole in the desk here. Never needed them as they gave good seeds every
year until recently. There's a lot of shipping involved for just one new
pack, and I'd like save $$$$ anywhere I can this year as money has really
tightened up here.

Also... the agent wants me to sterilize all my little plastic market packs
that I use and the shelves that I grow them on and the drip pans underneath.
Is this realistic? It seems like the dishwasher is too hot, and the 10:1
Clorox deal seems light to me. Any experiences with sterilizing everything?

Also... I was told to stop using my garden soil for seeds and go to the
soiless stuff. Is this really that big of a deal? What if I spray all of the
soil (after it's in the market packs) with Fungonil? I start my seeds early
as it's hard to predict how they'll get along with the conditions in the
house here, depending on the weather and how much the furnace runs or
doesn't. I shoot for May 1 for planting (a few earlier just for fun) and if
they take off then I rather they be in soil so as to not have to keep
transplanting them.



That's it for now... but the year is young :-)