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Post by paulf on Feb 4, 2017 13:19:20 GMT -5
In my basement seed starting laboratory, a dirt floor partial basement in the house that was built in the 1870s, the new fangled wires and pipes are all overhead in the seven foot ceiling floor joists. When we moved in and renovated twelve years ago, we put in a water softener. When this contraption does its thing in the middle of the night, the water used to regenerate the ion beads uses a strong brine solution to strip the hard minerals out of the contraption. All this hard mineral and brine is pumped to the wastewater piping through a quarter inch tube.
The tube popped out of the sanitary line a week ago or so and the salty water spilled into a tub of soilless mix. I noticed the mix was damp but I thought it was just still damp from the last time I used it.
The day came for me to start pepper seeds. The soilless mix was perfectly moistened and putting all my eggs in one basket, so to speak, I planted every pepper seed in my inventory into the six packs I use, put them all in a tray, labeled them appropriately, covered the tray with a dome, covered the whole thing with a plastic, turned on the heat mat and walked away expecting germination to begin.
After a couple of days I inspected the newly planted peppers...nothing yet. Inspected again today and nothing, except a whitish crust was on the soil. The floor was wet, the empty mixing tub had water in it. Looking around I noticed the drainage tube out of the wastewater pipe. I reinserted the tube caulked around it making the process water tight and yelled, "Oh crap!!!" Or something close to that.
Long story made short: My favorite pepper seed sellers have today received an order. At least it is still early enough to start over.
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Post by daylilydude on Feb 4, 2017 17:58:11 GMT -5
Oh no paulf sorry that happened, but glad you caught it before all the other seed starting got started! Just gotta ask though.... could they have been salvaged in any way?
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Post by paulf on Feb 4, 2017 20:24:44 GMT -5
I am going to see how many seeds have not begun to germinate, replant those and see what happens. My problem is that right now I am attempting to focus on too many things all at the same time....forgot to focus on the right things at the right time. Maybe it's the time of year and maybe it's the time of man...
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Feb 5, 2017 9:42:47 GMT -5
paulf, we all make mistakes at this time of year brought on by Cabin Fever. Good that you are able to order replacement seed and carry on.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Feb 5, 2017 12:10:11 GMT -5
Oh, no! I am glad that you caught it in time to place a seed order and restart, though.
I almost had a tomato disaster due to my cat digging in my seed trays just after I put the seeds in them. There were deep holes dug in some cells and potting mix was splashed every where. So I no longer had any idea which seeds were in which cells. (That ought to teach me not to walk away from a seed tray!)
Thankfully I had enough seeds to replant - but for some varieties I had to plant the very last of my seeds. The cats are now BANNED from the room with the seed trays until the seedlings go outside to harden off.
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Post by meandtk on Feb 5, 2017 20:53:12 GMT -5
Uh-oh! That is a tough one. I hope you can snap back and have a successful year.
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Post by paulf on Feb 5, 2017 23:30:53 GMT -5
It looks like maybe 20% of the seeds are saved and a new supply is on the way. Everything should turn out OK.
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Post by spacecase0 on Feb 7, 2017 17:37:34 GMT -5
I learned long ago to never plant more than half the seeds I have at a time hard to do that as i have to order 2 times what I want to plant.
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Post by paulf on Feb 19, 2017 10:45:59 GMT -5
Along with 12 varieties of sweet peppers there are now 35 tomato varieties germinating. Everything for this year is in the dirt (actually soilless mix).
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