Today’s 2 minute garden tip discusses a serious garden disease that can ruin your garden season before it starts: damping off disease. Preventing damping off disease is critical when starting seeds, because it is deadly to seedlings. Damping off seedlings is hard to stop once it starts, but there are things we can do to prevent it.
Damping off is the biggest threat when seed starting. Recognizing it early is critical so you can restart the seed starting process before too much time is lost.
If you have questions about stopping damping off disease in before it starts, need help growing a vegetable garden or growing fruit trees, want tips for gardening for beginners, want to know about the things I grow in my garden, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and “garden hacks” like this, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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©2 Minute Garden Tips
#gardening #garden #gardeningtips #seedstarting #startingseeds
25 Comments
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Would pouring boiling water in your seed starting mix prevent damping off?
I prevent damping off by not using a dome and only watering my seedlings with a half gallon one-handed pump up sprayer. Let the top of the soil dry before spraying again. Usually around 3 times a day.
I never sterilize any growing medium, ever. That's counterproductive. Stop focusing on healthy plants, focus 100% on healthy "soil," and not dirt, and the majority of all plant issues will be a thing of the past.
Soil is just like your stomach. What happens when you take an antibiotic? It wipes out your good gut flora, and it takes time to get healthy again. Exact same with sterilizing soil.
It's much easier to work with nature than it is to try and control nature.
I use those same big bags of peet for my starter mix. I always hydrate it for the first time using boiling water, which sterlizes it.
Same happened to me this year using peat/ perlite mix. Also my new trays were just too deep (3") so fungus gnats as well! So, not a deep hole and sterilizing the mix first, maybe use boiling water over the mix next time. And don't take home bales of peat with holes in them already wet from rain!! 😒
You can always go the shade cloth, moving them around in containers away from middle of the day sun, or reduced sunny areas to literally save your tomatoes and peppers. I think you still can expect a respectful harvest even though your in a VERY hot climate much of the year. You CAN do this even though you started them "too late"!!
I think you're overwatering them. I just put seeds straight into dirt and they're fine 99% of the time.
My onions sprouted, got about 2 inches tall, then just flopped over. Not sure what's going on, I tried feeding them this past weekend. I haven't started peppers or tomatoes yet, getting that done this week.
I have had this problem so many times, and no idea what caused it.
Expanding on what you talked about when being behind, that happened to me last year, in the blazing Texas heat. All I did was pull cuttings from the Spring tomato plants and transplanted them in late July in order to get great tomatoes in the Fall. Sucks, but there is a silver lining.
I have never had a problem making my own seed mix with peat moss, vermiculite, and perlite. I just put boiling water to wet the mix and let cool before planting.
I had the same problem last year, but I used the peat moss cube to save money on starter mix. I lost a lot of seedlings doing so and suspect that damping off was the culprit. Moving forward, I will try to sterlize the cubed peat by placing portions in a black box and letting it "cook" in the sun. Like your videos. Thx!
Great video. Thank you for the information. Could you possibly purchase seedlings at a nursery and just stomach the cost differential this one time?
Most wild nightshades are acctually extremely hardy , it's just tomatoes and eggplants that grow in tropical regions naturally in the world so that's why they arent hardy like most nightshades which grow more commonly in cold parts of the world than warm parts
I don't really have that problem when starting seeds. I make my seed starting mix with sphagnum peat moss and vermiculite. I also multi sow so if one doesn't make it the other seedlings still have a chance. Charles Dowding uses nothing but compost for seed starting and doesn't seem to have any problems. Could be just an isolated problem or too much water.
Did you hydrate the prepared soil mix with HOT water? I find that helps stave off damping off, white flies, etc because heat kills eggs & spores.
Ooof that sucks, thank you so much for sharing. I’m glad I got the dried blocks of soil this year. I had such a huge fungus gnat problem last year and now I know why some of my seedlings died. By the way, why don’t you check your local nursery to see if they have any transplants you could sub with. I know it’s not the best but it’s better than nothing 😅
I am so sorry! Thank you for sharing. I bought dry coco coir for my seedlings. Got lucky I guess. My friend gave me some pansy seedlings infested with fungus gnats! Took them out of my greenhouse, sprayed with hydrogen peroxide (in the shade) and added mosquito bits to kill larva. Will watch them carefully! Thanks again for all your experience, successful or not!
Great tip. I've been using my Instant Pot to pressure steam sterilize. I put about a gallon of used mix in a old cotton T-Shirt put about 2 cups of water in bottom of pot, and place the soil packaged in shirt on the steamer trivet. I set the pot to high for 30 minutes. It kills everything that would be alive in the soil. I started doing this after watching a video of someone doing it to sterilize their mushroom medium. Works great and is very reliable.
Regardless of how it looks, everything happens for a good reason whether we understand why now or later. Always remember that in order for an arrow to launch and hit the target it needs to be pulled back a little, and since you got pulled back by what happened, guess what comes next 🙂
I always use that same brand of peat moss I think I’ve been through about 12 cubic feet of it. I do always sterilize it myself before planting any seeds in it though. I’ve done the boiling water method and the oven method and both have worked beautifully. I hope you get your tomatoes!
I did the same mistake last fall, and learned the hard way, with my onions and brassicas. Planted in peat plus perlite to cut the cost, and exactly the same thing happened. So, my tomatoes, peppers and other hot weather veggies go now in different mix, and they are doing great.
Thank you for this video, I wish I knew it last year.
Sterile media is not the issue. Fungi spores are everywhere. The only way to prevent damping off is putting a fan blowing on the seedlings. Also works, though maybe not as consistently, is vermiculite as a fine covering. Depending on what I am planting, I will use both for alliums, fan only for Ieafy greens. I use potting mix that has slow release fertilizer already incorporated as the seeding mix. I have great germination success and do not need to fertilize until I put them in the ground. Moreover, the fan creates artificial wind, that causes stems to become stronger.
Thanks for this info! I had no idea that peat moss might NOT be sterile!!! So far I've had so few seeds to start I've just used the sterile seed starting mix, only needed one small bag. This year I've doubled my growing space. Sure glad to know that I best keep using sterile seed mix, even if I buy 5 bags instead of one.
You don't have to look to 2024. Get some tomatoes in the ground in late August-early September for a fall grow. I'm in North Florida and tried that for the first time last fall and it was very successful. Mad I hadn't tried it years ago.