Good thing killing plants is not illegal, because I’ve murdered quite a few. Indeed, that’s how I’ve learned to be a better gardener. This year, my seed starting projects have suffered from neglect and ignorance. My tomatoes and soapwort didn’t germinate, due to low temperatures in my basement, my morning glories and most of my broccoli got too leggy and flopped over, due to my grow lights being too high, and others just withered because I didn’t water them regularly. Some did fine, mind you: my lobelia, hollyhocks, zinnias, and iberis are doing great.
I’ve had to start over with so many plants, buying a heat mat for the seeds that need 70 degrees, and adjusting the lights lower to the seed trays. If that doesn't work, I’ll probably just buy little seedlings once it’s closer to Memorial Day.
With my daughter's help, I was able to start: tomatoes, soapwort, basil, sweet alyssum, and black-eyed susan vine on the heat mat, and nasturtium, annual baby's breath, sweet peas, and bachelor buttons. Let's hope for the best.
I was able to salvage the broccoli by taking the two cells that had un-flopped broccoli and instead of thinning them out, carefully separated the seedlings and transplanted each of them into separate little yoghurt containers (with holes poked in the bottom for drainage). I ended up with about a dozen plants.
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