Now What Do I Do?

[Setec Astronomy]

Well, I think the verdict is in...too much fertilizer--this is my Indigo Apple:

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[MissS]

Did you happen to rinse their roots off before you re-planted them? No huge mistake if you didn't. Just wondering so that I know about when they will start to recover.

[Setec Astronomy]

No, I didn't...but I tore the netting off of the Jiffy pellets when I re-potted, so a number of roots went along with that. That's a kind of a rinse, isn't it?

Should I be rinsing? I'm going to do some others shortly. I suppose I could rinse before I tear the netting off.

[DMF]

Open pots would make flushing the plants easy. You might cut off the peat bottoms and try it. But they will likely be okay without flushing.

Subtle difference between rinsing and flushing. Rinsing an exposed ball will carry away soil. Flushing - water in the top, let it run through - will leave the ball intact.

[MissS]

Rinsing them would get that fertilizer off of their roots. When I do it I actually soak the roots in water and remove all the potting mix that was involved in my errors. This helps their roots recover faster but rinsing is certainly enough.

[Setec Astronomy]

Open pots would make flushing the plants easy. You might cut off the peat bottoms and try it. But they will likely be okay without flushing.

Subtle difference between rinsing and flushing. Rinsing an exposed ball will carry away soil. Flushing - water in the top, let it run through - will leave the ball intact.

These (Jiffy) pots have drain holes in the bottom. After the first couple that I looked at unpotted, I could see I didn't have a plant in a peat pot, I had a plant in a Jiffy pellet in a peat pot. So I have now repotted most of them with fresh soil after taking the netting off, the most recent ones flushing the pellet off/out under running water before removing the netting. I have 3 that I'm waiting for more smaller pots that are coming tomorrow, and I think I'm going to leave the two that I replanted sideways (see post #17) alone.

And yes, MissS, I am certainly learning a lot! Let's see, don't write your notes in a way that you think the full dose of fertilizer is the half dose, don't use too much water (I think that's a bad habit I picked up from having a lot of self-watering plastic planters with big plants outside...and having them full and wet makes them less likely to get blown over in a windstorm), take the netting off of Jiffy pellets, use plastic pots, get better lights, don't get attached to your seedlings...snip off the extra ones!

[Setec Astronomy]

Did you happen to rinse their roots off before you re-planted them? No huge mistake if you didn't. Just wondering so that I know about when they will start to recover.

Any chance that one I pictured in Post #61 is going to die entirely? It's the only one that still looks really unhappy, I'm wondering if I should un-pot it again and flush the roots as you suggest, or if the shock will be worse for it.

[brownrexx]

Every time you un-pot a plant you are shocking it. I would give it time to recover before doing anything else. You don't want to kill it with kindness.

[MissS]

Did you happen to rinse their roots off before you re-planted them? No huge mistake if you didn't. Just wondering so that I know about when they will start to recover.

Any chance that one I pictured in Post #61 is going to die entirely? It's the only one that still looks really unhappy, I'm wondering if I should un-pot it again and flush the roots as you suggest, or if the shock will be worse for it.

Of course there is a chance of it dying. You are gardening and anything can happen. If you think that it is very unhappy then gently remove it and wash it off. It should perk up shortly after that.

[Setec Astronomy]

Just a quick update, I haven't killed anything--yet. Everything looks perkier, I still have 3 plants that I'm going to de-net and put in smaller pots later today. My 2 Wild Boar plants still look a little droopy, the Indigo Apple that I was most worried about isn't in the picture, I moved it under a different light.

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[DMF]

There are a couple of complainers, but I think they look pretty good. "More walkies, please."

[Setec Astronomy]

There's a few Maglia Rosa in there, they always look droopy. The one on the front right is my Lucky Tiger, and behind that my Brad's Atomic Grape, they sill look a bit droopy. Given the upcoming weather, I don't think they will be going out for a walk until Sunday.

[Growing Coastal]

I now have three that are behaving the same way! What I did wrong with them was to not mix the soil with a bit of lighter seed starter. The potting up mix is too heavy as is. It is only one variety - Brad's Atomic Grape.
I won't forget to mix again!
Everyone's going for walkies now. (Dog is getting jealous.) We've got a stretch of good weather days ahead.

[brownrexx]

I also think that they look pretty good. Mine were outside for 3 hours today.

[Setec Astronomy]

Ok, now that I seem to have everything stabilized...here's couple of off-topic thoughts.

This year I'm infatuated with Artisan varieties, I saw one at A.P. Whaley called Spike, that Artisan doesn't sell at their site. So I said what the heck. Well now I know why they named it Spike:

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Also, I had planned on direct-sowing some basil outside...then I read further down on the seed packet and saw optionally I could start them indoors. So I got a couple more of the little Jiffy windowsill planters. I had to get them from different places because like everything else, they seem to be in short supply. One of them looked different, and after I expanded them my suspicions were correct:

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They've gone to some papery cover instead of the nylon netting! This was maybe more interesting to me than to the rest of you, since I've torn the nylon netting off of about 20 pellets in the last week or so.

[DMF]

My starting equipment:
Paper towels
Coffee filters (opt)
Ziploc baggies
Hydrogen peroxide (opt)
pipette or syringe (or turkey baster) for handling small amounts of liquid
small juice glasses for overnight soaking
48" 4-tube Fluorescent fixture (hangs in a standard wire rack)
72-cell starter flat
Starter mix
Potting mix
Black pots off store recycling racks

Also, Tweezers, tiny trowel (a spoon would do fine), old window blinds for cutting pot labels, wall thermometer, misc

The light was the most expensive thing at $75. I'll need some more starter mix next year. Everything else is sunk cost or free.

[Setec Astronomy]

Alrighty, now my lower leaves are turning yellow on most of the plants (the true leaves). I would say it's from all the monkeying around I've been doing with the roots, etc., but it's also happening on some plants that I only up-potted once, and took the netting off then, when there weren't really any roots coming through the netting to be disturbed. And I don't think they got any fertilizer last time because they were too small.

So are they too wet because of the peat pots? Not enough light? Not enough fertilizer? I can't give them "walkies" outside because we're having 40 mph gusts today, and it's still going to be breezy through to Monday.

[DMF]

Pay the most attention to the growing tops. The bottom leaves are pretty much irrelevant, even this early. At this point I wouldn't second guess yourself, but leave well enough alone. Let them recover from your "manipulations".

If the pot surface is dry but the pots don't feel light, the water situation is fine. Over time you'll learn to judge the moisture level of a pot just by lifting it a little. Even if they are too wet right now, there's nothing you can do about it.

[MissS]

I agree with all that the duck said. He gave you some very good advice. Lifting the pot to judge it's weight is the best method that I know of to determine if the plant needs water. I also agree that at this point in time pay attention to the top leaves to see how the plants are responding to the new situation. You are correct that the plants are stressed and may be losing some leaves due to that. Let's wait a little bit and see how the new growth responds now.

[Setec Astronomy]

Thank you both, the top leaves look good except for a couple that look a little droopy, but I have some droopy varieties like Maglia Rosa and some other (probably) related Artisan varieties. I am getting the hang of lifting the pots for the (water) weight, trying not to keep things too wet.

Here's the family today:

You can see the yellow lower leaves on the Maglia Rosa in the front row--the top leaves only look yellow because of the lighting. The Indigo Apple is in the front left, that's the one from post #61, that leaf hasn't gotten any worse, and the plant looks good if a little droopy...maybe that's normal.

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EDIT: I still can't get over how different that Spike plant looks.