Green Thumb Gone Wrong: Dead Seedlings...

We tend to celebrate our successes in the garden (& in life) but sometimes it just all goes awry! This year we started a ton of seedlings in early April, the weather was extra warm & sunny. We thought we'd get ahead of the game, we had hundreds of seeds started from melons & pumpkins to lettuces & herbs. 

Once the lettuce seeds started to grow, we asked our friend with a green thumb if she thought they were ready for the next step & she agreed yes. It was time for the seed shoots to be thinned-out and replanted into individual containers. 

So we did - painstaking, one by one Jason gently pried them out of the rich soil as their fragile roots clung to one another. He transplanted them into small individual plastic containers with a mix of rich potting soil, compost & sand. Each finished tray was placed into a big wooden peach crate - long & flat - perfect to move the seeds in & out of harsh light, freezing nights or stormy weather. (Remember seedlings need a lot of TLC.) After all that, he watered them and placed them in the sun to grow strong. 

Well - right there - that's what did it, we fried 'em to a crisp! The seedlings were still too weak to be blasted with strong mid-day hot sun! We figured they just needed a day or two to perk up ....but they never did. After all that - we started with probably 200 lettuce plants & only 3 survived. Lesson learned - cover the seedlings until they are more established- at the very least in the harshest part of the day. Give them a little protection with a green mesh netting/cover. Help them grow strong from the get-go and you will be rewarded with tough hearty plants!! 

So we begin our seeds again....