Hi there,
I am somewhat new to gardening, trying it on a larger scale this year than ever before and I am repeatedly running into problems. I am struggling with leggy seedling since always, I have them in my living room, where its quite warm of course and this time of year there is not much light. I added a grow light and a fan and it seems like the situation is starting to improve. At least here I believe to know the cause of my troubles.
My current problem is that I cannot seem to get the watering right. I used to just use compost for the seedlings and they all died after a while, because the compost was just always wet. After some reddit advice, I got some seed compost that is based on coconut. Way better.
Now, if I follow the instructions of ANY youtuber(Charles Dowding, Huw Richards, the Epic Gardening guy) on how to water the seed compost when putting the seeds in, my plants die soon after germinating because the soil is just always wet.
The sweet spot between the seedling rotting because the compost is too wet and them not having enough water seems to be so incredibly narrow that it is very hard to control. Nothing like the instructions in the videos. I just really dont get what is going wrong here.
I just want to make clear, that my compost is NEVER close to being saturated with water. Otherwise the seedlings die.
01: This shows my lettuce. When I watered it some time ago, the new leaves started dying suddenly. Then, after the compost came closer to being dry, a knew leaf grew which seems to be very happy with this aloms bone dry compost.
02: My spinach is probably the best example of the problem. When the compost is moist, the leaves start to curl up and at some point the seedling dies. The tips of the leaves even become yellowish-wilted which I believe is a sign of overwatering. You can see two dead plants in the images. After they died, I did not water for two weeks maybe and the other plants recovered. Now that I added some water, they curl up again. And I repeat again, the amount of water these plants get, rediculously low.
03: Dead radishes. They might actually be dead because of lack of water. I missed the sweet spot between moist and dry...
04: These are lettuces I planted mid January in seed compost I made myself from compost, top soil and sand. I dont remember when I pricked them out and planted them into their own modules. It was at the end of January. I have not watered them a single time since then!!!!!!! At least three weeks. When I check underneath I can see that the mix is still moist. And the seedlings seem to be the happiest I have.(Which is a low bar considering the legginess etc
)
Soooo, I am really sorry this has been so extensive but this is the complexity that I perceive on my end. I really hope that someone here can give me some good advice, I would definately appreciate it.
Thank you very much in advance.
I am somewhat new to gardening, trying it on a larger scale this year than ever before and I am repeatedly running into problems. I am struggling with leggy seedling since always, I have them in my living room, where its quite warm of course and this time of year there is not much light. I added a grow light and a fan and it seems like the situation is starting to improve. At least here I believe to know the cause of my troubles.
My current problem is that I cannot seem to get the watering right. I used to just use compost for the seedlings and they all died after a while, because the compost was just always wet. After some reddit advice, I got some seed compost that is based on coconut. Way better.
Now, if I follow the instructions of ANY youtuber(Charles Dowding, Huw Richards, the Epic Gardening guy) on how to water the seed compost when putting the seeds in, my plants die soon after germinating because the soil is just always wet.
The sweet spot between the seedling rotting because the compost is too wet and them not having enough water seems to be so incredibly narrow that it is very hard to control. Nothing like the instructions in the videos. I just really dont get what is going wrong here.
I just want to make clear, that my compost is NEVER close to being saturated with water. Otherwise the seedlings die.
01: This shows my lettuce. When I watered it some time ago, the new leaves started dying suddenly. Then, after the compost came closer to being dry, a knew leaf grew which seems to be very happy with this aloms bone dry compost.
02: My spinach is probably the best example of the problem. When the compost is moist, the leaves start to curl up and at some point the seedling dies. The tips of the leaves even become yellowish-wilted which I believe is a sign of overwatering. You can see two dead plants in the images. After they died, I did not water for two weeks maybe and the other plants recovered. Now that I added some water, they curl up again. And I repeat again, the amount of water these plants get, rediculously low.
03: Dead radishes. They might actually be dead because of lack of water. I missed the sweet spot between moist and dry...
04: These are lettuces I planted mid January in seed compost I made myself from compost, top soil and sand. I dont remember when I pricked them out and planted them into their own modules. It was at the end of January. I have not watered them a single time since then!!!!!!! At least three weeks. When I check underneath I can see that the mix is still moist. And the seedlings seem to be the happiest I have.(Which is a low bar considering the legginess etc
)Soooo, I am really sorry this has been so extensive but this is the complexity that I perceive on my end. I really hope that someone here can give me some good advice, I would definately appreciate it.
Thank you very much in advance.
