Seed Starting Update: The Analysis of Failure

Once again, it's been a month since a post even after I swore I'd be doing weekly garden journal updates. Although my first crop of seeds fared mostly well, I had a few large exceptions. What better way to learn from mistake than by a thorough self-deprecating analysis, right?

TWO RULES FOR SUCCESSFULLY STARTING SEEDS:

1.) Don't accidentally delete your business website, or undertake a kitchen renovation, or pick up a completely consuming fiction trilogy (damn you, Lisbeth Salander!) or anything else that might cause you to totally forget to water your seeds. News flash: seeds need to be kept evenly moist. Duh .... loser! (C.Sheen)

2.) Don't decide that all seeds generally follow that same rules for soil, temperature, and lighting needs. Well, actually, you can, and get fairly good results. But you will have failures and will wind up disappointed. Here's my real life example.

My seed mix consists of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 perlite. Once sown, I water seeds from the bottom, mist spray the top, and then cover with plastic to create a warm humid environment. They are placed under fluorescent lights which are on all the time. The seeds vary in age, depending on when I bought them. I put a heating pad under the peppers, husk cherry, epazote and culantro to keep the soil temp at about 70 degrees.

This method worked just fine for my tomatoes, epazote, chervil, and fennel. But not all my planted seeds worked as well, and here are my seed failure reasons.

• Inconsistent Watering: Once again, don't underwater. You will kill your stuff, or diminish germination rates. While we're on the topic, don't overwater either. Overwatering rots seeds, and can lead to fungus and disease trouble. Although my fennel and chervil germinated fine, the both perished the weekend we went to the Philadelphia Flower Show. The show was great, but my seeds did not appreciate my neglect.
• Old Seeds: My peppers barely germinated, and the parsley and the sage didn't germinate even a bit. One possible reason is seed age. I have ten year old tomato seeds which are still growing up every year, but pepper seeds only last a year or two. All seeds have the production year stamped on them, so pay attention or you're wasting your time.
• Soil Needs: I took a whirl at culantro (also called "false cilantro") seeds having no idea how they were going to work. Not surprisingly, they didn't work at all. Some brief googling revealed that culatro seeds are not only sensitive age-wise (they need to be used within months of purchase) but they prefer a pure peat moss starting mix with no seed burial. They also take some extra time. I'm going to retry these and see what happens.
• Seed Treatment: Certain seeds need to be tricked into thinking they are in their natural habitat and growing conditions in the real world. "Stratification" is the art of bringing seeds out of dormancy by applying levels of cold and moisture to imitate winter conditions. One way to do that is by keeping seeds between moist paper towels in the refridgerator. Another way is to just direct sow the seeds where you want them instead of starting them inside. This is another potential reason why my poor parsley failed.

I started two more flats this past week and for the most part, I will probably not learn from my mistakes. So stay tuned!