"dps" wrote in message
...
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.
Not sure how the seeds got there, I'm gonna see if they shoot
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.
Interesting. I used to use a lot of Clorox on an old job and we made it very
strong for sanitiziing which had me thinking she didn't make it strong
enough. Last night a guy was telling me that any stronger that 10% might
leave a chlorine residue that might be a really bad thing in my market
packs... I might just buy new.
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.
I suppose. I just hate to put much $$$ into things where I don't have to,
and garden soil was always good to have in there if the weather was slow and
they had to live indoor longer than expected.
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.
This brings up a topic that I would be better to start a new thread on...
the lights that is.
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 :-)
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