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Onion seedlings, advice
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Topic: Onion seedlings, advice (Read 1463 times)
Gordonmull
Acre
Posts: 417
Grangemouth. On clay, becoming clay loam...slowly
Onion seedlings, advice
«
on:
February 22, 2012, 21:19:38 »
Over anxious beginner here again! I've got onions sown in modules on the living room windowsill, sowed 15 days ago, two seeds to a module. Most of them are up now and I'm wondering a couple of things.
Some of them have started to go brown at the tip - anything to worry about?
Some aren't seeming to stand up straight on their own, kind of flopping over. Pretty sure it's not damping off. Planted too shallow? Compost not firm enough in module?
I'm starting to see very small patches of mould starting to form on the compost surface and being extremely paranoid about damping off after losing most of my module sown plants to it last year, I'm wondering if it might be worth a couple of squirts of bordeux mixture on the compost surface to nail the mould?
Also, some cells haven't come up at all, some have one seedling and many have two. Would it be worth transplanting some from the cells that have two onions to the ones that have none? Am I being too impatient? Soil temp is >16C and I expected all that were going to show would have by now.
Appreciate any help! I'm going to be asking a lot of daft questions over the coming year...
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manicscousers
Hectare
Posts: 16,474
www.golborne-allotments.co.uk
Re: Onion seedlings, advice
«
Reply #1 on:
February 22, 2012, 21:36:38 »
ours are in the cold poly, I don't like growing them too long in the warm and only water from the bottom, I try to keep the top compost quite dry so we get no mould. That's how we do it :)
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grawrc
Global Moderator
Hectare
Posts: 6,583
Edinburgh
Re: Onion seedlings, advice
«
Reply #2 on:
February 22, 2012, 22:33:36 »
Sounds to me as if they're too wet, Gordon, and maybe too warm?
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elvis2003
Hectare
Posts: 1,702
Re: Onion seedlings, advice
«
Reply #3 on:
February 22, 2012, 22:44:48 »
theyre arent the easiest of crops to grow from seed gorgon so dont be too disheartened.good for you though for going for it in your first year! :D
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when the going gets tough,the tough go digging
Ninnyscrops.
Hectare
Posts: 1,581
downtoearth
Re: Onion seedlings, advice
«
Reply #4 on:
February 23, 2012, 00:06:07 »
I tried onions from seed and remember the crispy bits on the first leaves up. Just cool them down a little and the next leaves will follow. Scrape away any signs of what might look like damping off, carefully, and replace with dry compost, or whatever you are using, and perhaps a little fine grit or perlite to help soak up excess moisture . Agree it might be overwatering, so only water from the base.
Ninnys
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chriscross1966
Hectare
Posts: 3,764
Visionhairy
Re: Onion seedlings, advice
«
Reply #5 on:
February 25, 2012, 09:29:59 »
As a long time grower of onions from seed I would second the raising of the issue of overwatering... it's really easy to do with seedlings at this time of year, they don't use much water, the temperatures aren't casuing much evaporation and there shouldn't be muchairflow to casue it to evaporate that way either.... I now use capilliary matting and an off-board water supply to prevent this...
chrisc
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