2017 is underway. First sowing dates and seed starting mix.

It's time to start sowing tomato seeds...

3/12/17  Sowed the heirlooms.

3/19/17 Sowed the F3s from the IRxCP cross.

Actually I plan to sow again in April to get a delayed harvest group... if i can handle it..

I used Jiffy seed starting mix, supplemented with ~1 cup of plant food per 1/2 cubic foot mix.  The plant food was Burpee Organic Starter and Transplanting 3-6-4 Granular Plant Food.   This food has beneficial microorganisms - Bacillus species, but also, "VAM Microrrhizae" and several Glomus species. What are these? Beneficial fungal species. Although it didn't occur to me at the time that these were fungal and not just more bacterial species...

However - to remove the nasty microbes that cause damping off, I tried to carefully bleach and lysol the under-trays first, and I am using new 72-well inserts so those should be clean.  Before doling out the mix to the wells, I moisten it a little so it doesn't fly around everywhere, but not so much that it's clumpy.  Then after sowing the seeds I sprayed it with a littler water on top, and watered it from below in the under-tray.  Heat pad of course.

After about 48 hours I noticed some fuzzy white mold appearing on the top of the mix in the trays.  Egads!   At this point, I freaked out because I assumed that the mix was contaminated with mold.  Well duh, it is supposed to be contaminated with fungus - beneficial microrrhizae fungus, that is.   But I had not realized that, and I assume that it was just nasty mold that was going to kill all my seeds.

So I rushed to the store and got some Daconil.  Broad-spectrum anti-fungal agent.  Spray spray spray on the soil where the mold is.  Added some to the water too.   And lo, in a few days the mold was gone.  Hooray.  Except today - 3/25/17 -  I realized my mistake, in that I just killed off all the beneficial fungus in the mix. 

Well.  At least at this date, germination has gone well and so far so good.  My major damping off episode of 2 years ago was (i am quite sure) due to my initial use of inferior potting mix as the seed starting medium.   This go around, even with the Daconil the mix should be pretty clean.

Daconil is the brand name for Chlorothalonil.  It is practically nontoxic to humans.    But its half-life is "moderately persistent" at 1-3 months (http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/chloroth.htm).  So having applied it, I am mostly stuck with it remaining in the initial sowing soil.  I can keep it out of the transplant mix, at least.