Aggravating, but many horticulturists suggest not starting tomatoes too early anyways as frost or disease from cold/damp that can occur early from early planting of tomato crop. Luckily I had some seed leftover and so I've begun again, this time with the luxury of reasonably warm and sunshine-y outdoor weather. A later home-started harvest, but with luck there will still be a crop!
A very kind friend of mine purchased a good size Bonnie's indeterminate heirloom tomato for me in addition to a smaller hybrid indeterminate (that had 2 plants in it!) so that I wouldn't be without the deliciousness early this year. Oh us vegetable gardeners and our tomatoes!
But back to damp-off crud:
After I started pulling out the totally damped off seedlings from their small egg carton "pots," I wondered to myself about the famously well known stem-rooting properties that tomatoes possess and thought that I might still yet be able to save some. So I kept one Tropic tomato seedling with a pinched damped off stem and popped it in a small bath of water I was growing a grocery store fennel bulb in, making sure that the damped off stem base was under the water line. .
Here is the result after a week or so:
(at this point I had discarded the damped off portion that existed below the newly rooted part you can see now)
Now that I have potentially found a way to save damped off seedlings I am slightly smacking myself at not having done with more of the sad looking plants I chucked.
So, just wanted to share if any of you run into damp off issues. (There is hope!)
