potting on......

ds1980

I have varying degrees of success with seeds and then potting on are there any good tips. Currrently have lupins which were doing good.... potted on and theyve stopped growing and some parts have died.

Balsam bizzies that i took seeds from last year all sprouted really quickly...potted on and theyre all dead?

think ill be going back to sowing in situ if i cant get it right!

pink_poppy

I'm just new to this but I know you're supposed to hold the plant by a leaf rather than the stem when you're potting on, don't know if that helps

SailorSam

The trouble i have when sowing seeds in situ is when i try weeding around them i'm not sure what i'm pulling up.

A._Badger

ds1980 wrote: »

I have varying degrees of success with seeds and then potting on are there any good tips. Currrently have lupins which were doing good.... potted on and theyve stopped growing and some parts have died.

Balsam bizzies that i took seeds from last year all sprouted really quickly...potted on and theyre all dead?

think ill be going back to sowing in situ if i cant get it right!

What are you putting them in? If your compost is too strong (ie something like a John Innes 3) or too weak (John Innes seed) then you won't get good growth. Probably for most people a good quality multipurpose potting compost is easier to use, so choose that.

Always pot up just one size. A common mistake is to put a new seedling into a pot that is too big. If you do, the compost not being drawn on by the root system goes sour and the plant won't do well. Just go up to the next size pot available.

Finally, do you actually mean pot-on or !!!!!-out? (the idiot robot nanny on this forum won't let me use the word pr**k) If it's a seedling that has just germinated then what you're doing is called pricking-out, which is a more difficult technique as the root system will be very small and the stem often incredibly delicate.

Handle a seedling by its seed leaves (not its true leaves) try not to handle the stem, use a good compost and either a small pot for an individual seedling, or spaced into a seed tray, if it's a bedding plant.

With lupins, I find they germinate well in something like a quarter tray and respond well to being carefully pricked-out into 2 inch (or thereabouts) pots. When these are filled with roots, you go up to a 3 inch or 4" pot and after that they are ready to be hardened-off and planted out.

Hope that's some help.

DebtFree2012

Very informative information there, thank you.