Help! Indoor seedlings are dying!
I started a lot of seeds indoors about a month ago. A variety of flowers, veggies, and herbs.They all sprouted and everthing was fine until I started noticing a fuzzy white fungus type thing growing across the surface of my soil. I noticed it on one plant's soil, then another... now most of them have it. I took some of the larger sprouts out of my little store-bought Jiffy greenhouse and put them into plastic cups that I poked holes in the bottom of. Now I'm starting to notice little mushrooms poping up in the ones I put into cups! My plants are dying...none of them look good. I don't understand, I watered them, gave them sunlight (as much as I could), and now they are all loosing their color, turing white and disapearing and they all see to either have that white stuff on the soil or have little mushrooms. How can I stop this? How can I prevent this from happening again? I just want to throw everything away and start over! Any guidelines or tips to preventing that white stuff from coming back or help stop my plants from losing their color?
I need a "gardening for dumbies 101" lesson! LOL, Help!
I will try to add pis of what's going on tomorrow :)
Limon
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That is probably from Damping (post #16506, reply #1 of 4)
That is probably from Damping Off disease caused by the surface soil, most often, being too wet. The cure is to allow the soil to dry some, don't water too often, and increasing air circulation over the seedlings. This, from the University of Connecticut, may help. http://www.hort.uconn.edu/ipm/greenhs/htms/dampofgh.htm
The sign of a good gardener is brown knees, not a green thumb.
I agree: it sounds like (post #16506, reply #2 of 4)
I agree: it sounds like damping off. Keeping a little fan blowing lightly over your seedlings can help.
I think what you have is (post #16506, reply #3 of 4)
I think what you have is beyond damping off disease. You got a really bad batch of soil if there is white fungus growing on top of the soil, and for goodness sake, little mushrooms? The best thing you could do here is start over, and if you feel you need to continue using the soil you have, sterilize it by pouring boiling water through it, baking it in the oven or use it outdoors. If you buy either seed starting mix or professional growers mix you will have a safe product to start your seeds. Whatever you were using, if I had soil that did this, I would dump it outdoors. New seedlings are very vulnerable to pathogens in the soil, which is why a seed starting mix is your best bet, as they are basically sterile. And if you are going to re-use containers that had this soil in it, be sure to rinse them in water with about 10% bleach in it before reusing them.
seeds (post #16506, reply #4 of 4)
I agree with 1946, you might as well start over. Be sure to use a sterile seed starting mix, some potting soils are to heavy, and as soon as the seeds sprout take them out of your little greenhouse and put them in a sunny place ( or use lights ) with good air circulation. Water them when almost dry and don't saturate the soil, I use a kitchen baster because it gets the water where I want it and is gentle on the little seedlings. Keep them off the floor and move them away from windows if night temps drop drastically. I've been growing seeds for twenty years and have never had a damp-off problem; of course having said that my plants will probably all die tomorrow.