"Lawrence Akutagawa" wrote in message
et...
This spring I tried - as usual - to start the veggies indoors. Not as
usual, I had little to no luck with the eggplants, cucumbers, and
tomatoes. Only the pole beans sprouted well. Some that sprouted soon died
as though from what looked like dampingoff...even though I had placed the
containers with soil in the microwave a good ten minutes to sterilize the
mix. I never had this problem in prior years. I just didn't know what
was going on.

But then I noticed some volunteer tomato seedlings in the ground outside.
So when we had an unexpected rainstorm some weeks ago, I captured and kept
about three 5 gallon buckets of rain water. I used that on the
containers...now moved outdoors...and lo and behold - sprouts.

The conclusion is that the city water has something that the rain water
does not. The big difference is that the water company started
fluorinating the water last November. Could this have been the difference
between last year's success indoors and this year's failure? Anyone out
there have similar experiences?

Chlorine is more likely to be the culprit. The chemical will dissipate over
24-48 hours if you fill up a bucket and just let it sit, uncovered. However,
damping off can be minimized by providing some moving air, and higher
temperatures. Did you provide any kind of heat under the pots?