KWW: Container Gardening

Well, this eager beaver killed a few of her plants. Yep you read it right, I managed to not actually grow anything except four. The only things that lived are my garlic which I can't use until the fall. three pots of potatoes and one pot of basil.  

Because I am used to just starting the seeds in the ground, having to use pots and this seed starting kit just didn't cut it. I watered every other day and the plants had all started blooming, once the reached the stage to be moved is when the problem started.

For several of the plants (my onions, aniseed, lavender, mint and oregano) I stated them in the Burpee seed starting kit, which came with it's own 'soil'. Now normally when I'm at home with my parents I will start my seeds in an egg carton with soul taken from the woods in our backyard, I would mix that with store bought soil and my plants would come out fine. This is my first time trying the seed starting kit and it failed miserably. 

These swelled with the addition of water

The cups seen here promoted mold, these I didn't water often because they seemed to retain much of the water and so I watered every few days, the seeds seemed to enjoy germinating there and then suddenly there would be little patches of white mild on them and the soil.


This green house kit worked the same way. The seedlings did fine at first but when you had to open it up to let the seeds grow some more they formed the white residue on top. I thought at first perhaps I wasn't giving them enough sunlight but the package said the first week or two no direct sunlight so I did as it said.  

My plants failed and now I have to start all over again, At least i seem to not be the only one this is happening to, a few of the local farms i have been to are behind on their growth due to the late frost we had and the weird up and down weather we had right up until Solstice.  I dumped all the pots and washed them, I tossed the pots that had mold in them and I went and repurchased all my seeds. I also skipped that step for a few of them and got small plants from the local farms and market near me.

I will be going home to get bags of soil from the woods, as well as some of my parents compost, let me tell you I have a composting nightmare to share with you next week.  This is the first time in a long time where I have killed my plants and let me tell you as a green witch it's very disheartening. I have killed this many plants since i first started learning to plant when I was a tween. I am starting over, and I am going to use what I know and not try this 'fancy' stuff, I'm sure for some this burpee stuff would work fine but I found that for me it didn't. I'm counting it as a lesson learned and going back to basics/

How is everyone else doing on their plants??
Be blessed