my onion seedlings are dead

[lottie lou]

Sowed my onion seeds on Boxing Day - put them on the heated propagator.  They came up okay but they havenow floppoped over and died.  The base of the seedlings have wilted.  What have I done wrong and is there time to start again.  This didn't happen last year and I did the same.

[lottie lou]

[Digitalis]

I don't know what killed them, but I think you'd be better off with onion sets now as I'm not sure there is time to sow seeds again this year.

Sorry!

[Chrispy]

Mine have done the same, damping off I guess.
Make sure your trays are very clean, use fresh compost and don't sow too thickly.

OK, I'm off to take my own advice.

[elvis2003]

try again,i sowed seeds in march last year,grew into cracking onions (the ones that geminated,that is!)

[manicscousers]

we sow our long red florence until late march, might not grow as big but we do get a reasonable harvest  :)

[grawrc]

My autumn sown ones on the lottie have been decimated by the bunnies as have the brassicas. :'( :'( :'( Never mind I still haven't looked in my mini-tunnels. Let's hope they've survived.

I haven't done any sowing indoors yet - too busy with house renovations. Anyway early days in the frozen north! ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

That's damping off, a fungus disease. Either the compost or the amtmosphere was too damp.

[chriscross1966]

Wash the trays carefully with soemthing like jeyes fluid or a good detergent. resow in fresh compost, don't water so much and use Cheshunt Compound. Also don't use rainwater, use tapwater, preferably slightly warm (boiled and cooled is best but still lukewarm)...

chrisc

[mokanoo]

I sowed some two weeks ago in my trusted chinese takeaway cartons, about 30 in all and they've germinated but they are on the kitchen windowsill so I will look to move them somewhere a little less humid. Thanks for letting me know about damping off.