Both Banana Boom and Greek Pepperoncini are starting to get their first true leaves. It took two tries to get any peppers to sprout and survive and I'm so proud of them.
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Both Banana Boom and Greek Pepperoncini are starting to get their first true leaves. It took two tries to get any peppers to sprout and survive and I'm so proud of them.
So, this is something that can happen to your little seedling:
See how the leaves are just stuck inside of the seed? That actually happens pretty often, especially if you plant a lof of seedlings!
This is not the intended way for seedlings to grow; they're supposed to wrangle their leaves out of the seed while still in soil, so they could use the hold of the soil as a way to pull out of the seed. Once they push the seed outside, together with the leaves, there are 2 problems: there's nothing they can do to pull out of the seed because nothing is holding the seed, and, the seed has now dried up, stiffened, and the leaves got stuck to it.
So if you just leave your stuck seedling like this, thinking 'oh it will get out eventually', it's more likely that the seedling will die. However, you can help this! You can use your hands to free the seedling, but carefully.
Keep in mind that the leaves are still curled inside, if you try to yank them out, they are more likely to break than to actually slip out. Here's a way that works for me 90% of the time.
Spray the seedling generously with water.
Leave it like that for 2 minutes, so the seed becomes a little softer, and the leaves absorb the water enough to become unstuck from the seed.
Gently pull on the seed. Sometimes the whole plant will want to follow, in which case you hold the stem with your other hand.
With a bit of luck, you're done! The leaves are now free and the plant is likely to grow!
Sometimes the seed will be at the very tips of leaves, and even if you yank it off and break the tips, the plant can still survive. I've broken 50% of the leaves in the past and the plant still survived, sometimes even just a bit of leaf is enough to absorb light, to grow another leaf.
However, sometimes the seedlings will have 90% of the leaves still inside, and that requires some very careful and gentle coordination to pull out of. Sometimes it helps to pull it out at an angle, sometimes loosening the seed with water will help, sometimes I even squish the seed a little, break the leaves a little, but they survive. 10% of these are just impossible to save, if you break the leaves so badly that 90% of them are broken off, then the plant has no chance.
I feel like this problem could also be mitigated by planting a little deeper than I do, but I like shallow planting so that's not going to happen (I want the plants to get out of the soil quickly so I don't bury them deep).
Good luck saving your little seedlings! I had to pull out about 12 seeds in the last 3 days, and I only ruined one plant.
we got ROOTS
seeds came from a pepper from grocery store
Three new tomato seedlings are coming up (brown sugar, bobcat, and rebel starfighter prime) and one more pepper. I probably should have watered today because things dried out way faster then I expected, but it was a long and busy day on very little sleep so that's tomorrow's problem. I did get to cook the first zucchini tonight. It went into a pasta with some mushrooms that I cooked down two days ago. Partner really liked this variety, so it's a winner.
June 2022: Another Hot Day
We’ve been under a heat advisory all week. Today, it hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit with a 110 heat index. Our pepper seedlings were feeling the heat:
My queen’s map of the garden plan for Plot 420:
Found a couple of these caterpillars on our grape vine:
I top dressed the Bodacious corn in the backyard garden with compost. My queen sowed some Kandy Korn sweet corn to replace the Luscious which didn’t sprout. We also direct sowed a few Black Beauty tomato seeds:
Honestly, for a while I was sure I’ll have to buy my pepper seedlings from the farmer’s market this year, but it looks like we’re doing alright! They’re growing so fast, it hasn’t even been a week since this picture.
Birds eye pepper seedlings born in mid December