new to gardening. now needing to fix mistakes

[Arielle35]

thank you everyone for all you many opinions and ideas and advice!! i did move them up alot closer to the lights.. i was thinking of puttin tin foil on the plastic to help reflect.. think that would work? I live in an apt and the posistion my apt sits...and the over hang on the balcony...i dont ever get direct sun in my place...just light... i keep the blinds open during the day...but even tho its winter..the few sunny days dont help me...

after reading...i dont understand what cutting back means???

yes I understand the first leaves are not true leaves.... its funny but I explained them to my kids as "milk leaves" since we have lots of baby animals and thier first teeth are milk teeth.. lol we get it... also i read as the plants reach like there 4th set of true leaves...are we suppose to clip the "milk leaves" off?? i am scared to do that lol

also....yes i have thinned them all now... there is 1 seedling per peat pot now. and as someone said...the 5 impatiens that are like 6+ inches...thier roots have grown thru the pots and gettin entangled in each other and the other flowers... so tomorrow I am puttin them in larger pots with indoor soil... do i cover stems or no?? i read both on here??

also when i take them out...i can move the whole container closer to the light....

ok now more questions..... i used egg cartoons to put some peat pots in cuz i dont have any more jiffy containers and was told to use them..... but in the green house they are moist (not soggy) but when i picked up a peat pot there is black mold?!?!?!?!
is this the deadly kind of black mold that is going to poison my kids and i?? I know that when i get a fan it will help keep it dryer in there and stop it...but for now...i need to get rid of them asap but dont know what i can put the pots in???

im scared im in over my head... but i really do love this...just wish i knew more....

 

[Arielle35]

oh and marshel...some things on ur other post...

ok so how far should the tops be from the white light?? Its not really a hot light...i can hold my hand right next to it and its not hot like a desk lamp light... but they were like an inch below it and now in 24 hours they grew up to touch it..
i think they want to touch it..

also u said pinch the newest little growth in the middle and the side buds will grow...mine doesnt have side buds... its ...hold on let me measure... lol ok dirt, almost 6 inches of stem (light green to pink in color), "milk" leaves, and 1 large set of true leaves,
then 1 set of small true leaves.... so nothing really to "pinch" off

almost all my sprouts (since i planted roughly the same day) have 1 set of true leaves... only a couple has there 2nd set and its just starting....

the only thing thats way awesome with no problems that i started 2 weeks before my others....i call it the gateway plant, since its what made me get the itch.... is my catnip plant i planted for my indoor kitty... about got like 5 sets of leaves and growing well..not leggy, just all around perfect... we call it meownip.....

ok another question i have..... i just bought my big bag of soil... i put it in a pot and put one of my transplants in there...about 3 days later...some new plant is growing!! ok just to be clear.. i did not have any seeds anywhere around!! this is something that
came with the soil!! what is it?? its a tiny seedling...an inch tall.. with the 2 leaves...very skinny leaves...not full and round like any of my others...

 

[Arielle35]

lets see if that worked?? these are my way tall double impatiens

u can see the couple of painted daisys and the coleus too

 

[Arielle35]

also here is my meownip... can u see the wierd seedling?? anyone know what it could possibly be? if its a flower that came with the soil by accident i dont want to kill it...if its a non flowering weed...ill pluck it im predjudice i know only against flowers hehe

 

[Ridgerunner]

I went to look up what you are calling milk leaves. The proper term is cotyledons. Do not remove them. They are part of the seed and the plant draws nutrients from them. Eventually they should dry up and go away as the true leaves take over and start photosynthesis.

As I said before Im not a flower person. Well, Im the right generation to be a flower child but by that I mean I just start vegetables from seeds, not flowers. I cannot help you with specific flowers. Im not sure how they are supposed to grow. But those photos dont look like candidates for pinching back at all. I have to be a bit careful with terminology, but to me pinching back is where you take the growing tip off a branch so suckers will grow out from the rest of the plant and make the plant a lot fuller. I do that with a lot of my herbs and a few other things.

If your plants get too big for your indoor grow area and the weather is not suitable to put them outside, you can use this to cut them down to size. If you can its usually better to re-pot them in bigger pots but I dont have enough space under my grow-lights to do that. Different techniques for different people to suit out unique circumstances.

I dont know if you can cover the stems of impatiens or not. Some plants will grow roots on any part of the stem that is buried, like tomatoes, so they take real well to being buried deep. Some plants dont. I dont know where impatiens are in that so Im not going to say. I will say if you do be very careful. Long leggy stems like that are very weak. Its real easy to bend them which will probably kill them.

I dont know of your black mold is the black mold that is risky. Its probably a good idea to try to not grow it in either case. How? Let it dry out.

Seeds need moisture to germinate, but once they sprout and start growing, the moisture requirement goes down. The roots need to be in damp soil but wet soil is bad. There are various types of fungus that can kill your seedlings. A common symptom is that the stem of the seedling shrivels up and turns brown or black right at the soil line. The plant will die. A real common way to prevent that is to let the surface of the soil dry out quite a bit. Dont overwater. Its a balance. If it dries out too much the plant will die. If you overwater, you can get damping off. Thats where the fan comes in. Its a good way to dry the soil after you water.

Damping off is only a risk for seedlings. Once they get to a certain size, damping off is no longer a risk. But overwatering is still bad. You still need good drainage.
Hope this helps a little bit. Good luck!

 

[catjac1975]

I have to say they do not look like impatiens to me. Is that mold on the peat pots? Beware of overwatering. Let the top of the soil dry out a bit between watering. Mold can quickly kill your seedlings. If it is mold mix hydrogen peroxide with water and spray the mold. 1 part HP to 3 parts water. This will also kill fungus gnat larvae but needs to be used as a soak. Fungus gnats will feed on the roots of you seedlings.

 

[897tgigvib]

Ok, now that i see your pictures...

1) do not do any of that pinching i was talking about. they are not ready for it.

2) do not remove those milk leaves. ever. they'll dry up on their own. I love how you call them that!

(Amazingly, mammals and plants with cotyledons evolved about the same time. Milk leaves is a very cool analogy. Not perfect, but very cool!)

3) Yes, tin foil or white sides will help. A lot.

4) The sprout that came from your potting soil is likely a weed. We used to get Oxalis weeds from potting soil. In a lot of situations you sure don't want to get those things going. Up to you, but be careful it does not try to take over. Keep an eye on it not to let it take over.

Ridge is giving excellent advice! So is CatJac...watch out for fungus gnats...potting soil gnats is a better name. seedling killer gnats is an even better name. they are tricky to spot.

 

[Arielle35]

catjack-- they are pink double impateins Camellia. the seeds are round and look like fish pellets... the mold is not on the flowers or the peat pots.. just around the edge of where peat pot sits on egg carton.. I replanted the ones in one egg carton into the small plastic containers I got.. I still need to do that to one more egg carton then I wont have those anymore....

 

[Arielle35]

ok so i took a bunch of pics...its so much easier to explain with pictures!!! (for me anyway) ok this is one of my double impaitens. I replanted and buried half the stem. I googled a few sites and saw a couple of times that these will grow roots out of the
stems. so *crosses fingers* i hope it works!!! both of these pics are the double impatiens.

this next picture is one of my little coleus thats just barely starting to get some color!! I have 8 coleus seedlings. they have there baby leaves and 1 set of true leaves. the 4 bigger ones all have the same coloring.. green with the little red in the middle.
the pack was coleus mix..so there should be a few different colors... do they all start out the same or did i get screwed and they are all the same color??

next question... this is one of my painted daisys. all my other painted daisys are perfect. but this one... when it was growing its "milk leaves" one of the leaves had like a conjoined twin. Now im not sure if plants have DNA but it appears like a defect. is this normal or not?

ok this next picture is the mold I was talking about... where the bottom of the peat pot rests on the egg carton...it keeps the carton moist and thus developed the mold... but there isnt mold on my pots them selves...just the carton...

also...i have never noticed any bugs in my soil I bought... should i expect them? look for them? its winter and we have about 4 feet of snow outside and im upstairs in an apt...so i have never gotten bugs (other than a few flies) even in the summer....

 

[catjac1975]

When the impatiens get a little bigger pinch out the center leaves and they will send out 2 or 3 shoots in their place. Given the earliness of the planting if you keep pinching them back you will get nice full plants. You just need to watch for bugs, it is not inevitable.