At a loss starting seeds. What am I doing wrong? Too much light?
This is my second year experimenting with starting seeds indoors and doing a bit of gardening on my NYC fire escape.
Last July my interest came seemingly out of nowhere, and despite my very late start and lack of experience, I was pretty proud of the few blooms I grew successfully so late in the season!
This year I started earlier and it’s been a complete mess. My seedlings are dying, and I can’t do anything right. I created a whole schedule of when to start what and long story short it all went to shit.
I’m on my second round of germinating seeds and my success rate is further plummeting. It’s almost like they can sense how frustrated I am. A dahlia I started in late March (see pics) had some strong veins in its first true leaves, then stopped growing. I’ve now been torturing myself by watching it slowly die.
The zinnia, bells of Ireland (started in late Feb) and calendula all sprouted beautifully before their leaves started turning yellow. But their stems were strong during that period (see pics).
I’ve read extensively about damping off disease, but it didn’t seem to be damping off causing these issues (if anything, maybe they’re thirsty due to my fear of overwatering). Then it occurred to me my lights may be too close.
The amount of available gardening info online is both a blessing and a curse. The lights I have from Amazon say to keep about a foot away from seedlings. But everywhere else online says keep them very close (like 2-4 inches). A lot of the germinated seeds sprout and then quickly wither away within a day.
(Btw usually this setup is in another room much further from a window, but I have a guest staying with me this weekend).
I just ordered new cell trays etc from the bootstrap farmer and a big shop light from Walmart. I’m just using seed starting mix from miracle gro. Does anyone have any thoughts or pointers? I’m at a loss and if you’ve read to this point I’m already greatly indebted to you!