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  • From: Marlin L Burkholder <gleneco1 AT juno.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Problems starting plants
  • Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 07:21:12 -0500



Last year I had a number of flats that germinated spotty or unusually
slow or once they came up they seemed to stop growing and just sit there.
I blamed it on every thing from using old seed to inadequate
fertilization to planting in the wrong moon sign. I had a lot of trouble
with broccoli, cabbage, onions, and some peppers with the tomatoes for
the most part doing okay. In June and early July I had some broccoli and
chinese cabbage that came up and did nothing for a whole month until I
finally in desperation planted the puny plants in the garden. I
concluded that setting the flats on a pressure treated deck had caused
that problem.

This year I still had 1/2 of the last bale of potting soil left from last
year so I started using out of it for my first seedings in late January
and February. After waiting nearly 3 weeks for an onion planting, I
finally decided they had succombed to damp off and trashed them,
sterilizing my flats and some of the potting mix and starting over.
Several flats of lettuce came up very unevenly and wouldn't grow and had
to be trashed. Early tomatos seeded in mid February came up good but
then formed yellow secondary leaves and showed signs of stopping. I
immediately transplanted them to 4" jiffy pots of a wonderful looking
compost-loam soil mixture (which grew some hefty lambsquarter weeds last
summer) with a little Tomato Tone mixed in. At a month after their
seeding date and several days after getting a weak solution of Miracle
Gro and Neptunes Harvest seaweed-fish emulsion they are only 1" high and
still not looking good. The first planting of broccoli came up a little
spotty but is now looking good. The second planting of onions is not
worth a darn. Cabbage plants came up well but are not growing like they
should. I'm planning to throw away the rest of that bale of potting mix,
Sunshine Mix #1.

I am aware that this type of potting mix only has enough nutrients to
germinate plants and soon should be followed by a regular fertilization
program. Knowing this, I had mixed in 1 part Plant Tone to 25 parts soil
when I hydrated my potting soil and have begun using weak fertilizer
solutions according to recommendations a week post germination.
Greenhouse temps get up into the 90s on sunny days and down to around 40
at night. I carry the tomatoes and germinating flats into the house
nearly ever night especially if freezing temperatures are forecast. Every
thing I've seeded the past two weeks has been into Sunshine Mix #3, a
finer textured mix. The lettuce in this mix looks better but the
broccoli in this mix came up spottier than I like.

I thought maybe some one on this list might have some insights of what
might be going wrong and what I might need to do to get some of my stuff
going, especially those early tomatoes. I think I have taken adequate
precautions with sanitation, fertilization, and temperature control. My
records show that I also had some problems in 99 but most of that was
from letting some stuff freeze. I now watch those things closer. That
was the year I brooded chicks in the greenhouse over winter and one
person told me that residual ammonia inside the greenhouse might have
caused trouble with the onions that year.

Oh BTW those of you complaining about still having snow on the ground
have much to be thankful for. Here in western Virginia we are having
what amounts to be a severe winter drought. If one added up all the snow
that fell here this winter he still wouldn't have enough snow to make a
decent snowball fight. Most of the weather bypasses us to the North and
even the last rain only gave us a few sprinkles and hardly enough to make
a good morning fog. Then the wind gets up and blows it all away. If we
don't get something soon we are going to be in serious trouble.

from the central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
Marlin Burkholder
Glen Eco Farm




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