I need tips on starting tomatoes and peppers from seed!

[catjac1975]

They just kind of...died. I don't really know what happened! I did everything I was told to do by what I found on the internet and from friends who do this all the time. I'm thinking maybe I had bad seeds. Who knows!

I have started banana peppers and beef steak tomatoes from seed before- about 90% of them didn't make it to the garden. And the ones that did make it were very strange looking, to say the least. They did produce though! Last time I didn't use heat mats or grow lights at all- just pure mother nature. This time I have some great heat mats and grow lights that are working wonders for my herbs that I propagated. I would like some tips from all of my easy gardener friends! Let the information start rolling :coolsun

Your plants will never look as good as store bought grown in commercial greenhouses. I have found my seedlings grow better in the garden than the store bought. I believe they are over fertilized so they look good. Have you ever found they just sit in the ground after you plant them?
Your new tools should give you better plants than you last ones. Have fun!

Why did 90% of you plants not make it to the garden?
Was it damping off? Pests?
Watch for fungus gnats, white fly , and aphids.

If they sprouted and then just died it is probably one of the things I listed above. Damping off is common. Use you seed starting mix. lay the seed on top, and then cover lightly with coir or vermiculite.

 

[cityfarmer]

Be patient with peppers. More than once I didn't think I was going to get any more and let the soil dry out because I thought they were done. Low and behold that is when the little devils decided to sprout.

Also, when I transplant from the small starter packs (mine is 124) I use yogurt cups for everything but tomatoes and peppers. For the tomatoes and peppers I use margarine/butter/cottage cheese tubs. I found that something wider helped keep them from getting spindly. This is especially true for the tomatoes.

Goodluck.

 

[tropicalplanttom]

Can I just second (or even third!) the comments regarding light. I always end up with a dilemma of starting too early and ending up with plants which are just too leggy as they've had to search out light which is just not there to early in the year, versus feeling like it'll be autumn before I really get harvesting. But that's the deal I suppose for insisting on being in the UK

 

[897tgigvib]

It is all good advice they gave you, especially ridgerunneer's and swampduck's.

Seedlings that "just die" is usually what is called "damping off" a bad fungus or mildew thing caused from too much moisture, humidity, and the spores in the startwer mix. If you look closely at the soil when that happens, you may see very fine tendrils sticking up a fraction of an inch. That's the bad guy.

It needs to have the whole area cleaned a lot using 9 to 1 bleach, 9 parts water, one part bleach. The area needs to be dessicating dry for awhile. New soil starter mix that claimns to be sterile needs to be used.

How are your pepper and tomato plants doing now a few months down the line?

 

[HotPepperQueen]

My tomato plants are about 2 feet tall and pepper plants are about 1.5 feet tall. They did amazing! Nice thick stalks, dark green leaves (no purple underneath!), straight up and down (although one Brandywine looks like a corkscrew), and theyre starting to get flowers already. I cant believe I did it! I'm pretty proud of myself to say the least. Here's a picture from about 3 weeks ago: