Experiment in bypassing damp off

Most of my original tomatoes that I started by seed fell victim to damp off.

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!)

Gibberellin overload? Lessons in Tomatillo seedlings...

So, the tomatillo seedlings.  They seem happy.  Almost a little too happy.  Or just supermodel leggy, which makes no sense because I KNOW they're getting adequate light.  Everyone else seems happy and NORMAL in the mini greenhaus.

The tomatillos on the other hand... what the heck?

(pardon for dirty side of greenhaus... too small to get my camera in there properly to show the legginess)

I think I might be needing to transplant/re-pot these sooner than I thought.

I'm really hoping (and assuming) just like tomatoes they're a hardy bunch and will take well to being moved around and yanked out of their little soil-y home because, Immagonnahaveto.

Funny how everything seems to take so long to get started, and once it does, there's a feeling of "SLOW DOWN! PLEASE"

Like I tell my husband when I go garden crazy in the spring and seem manic in the garden, "MOTHER NATURE! I CAN'T STOP HER!  I have to plant, NOW!"

By now you're probably wondering, "When's she going to get to that weird thing in her subject heading?  Gibb-a-what?"

Gibberellin is this super spiffy thing in nature that has never left my head since I heard about it in a high school biology class.  (That and cane toads).  Anyways, gibberellin, besides being a fun word to say is a plant hormone that is involved in development.  It's involved in the aptly dubbed "foolish seedling" disease.  You can read the linked wiki article, but the main point is ridiculous plant growth in the seedling stage that causes it to be tall and thin and thus delicate and easily breakable at an early stage.

I  don't really think my tomatillo has this issue, but I just think of gibberellin every time I have seedlings that act this way or I see tall skinny people or my patience wears thin...

That's my bit of science trivia for today!

Hope all is well in your gardens and that you're babies aren't growing up too quick!

The seedlings! The seedlings!

No way! The seedlings are starting up!

All of them except the beetberry, but I'm not too worried because a) it's hasn't been that long since I planted them and b) it's known to take a notoriously long time to germinate

The kale, mustards and chards are no surprise to be making an appearance already with all of my diligent watering (for once) and the extra rain that's been going on. Oh, babies... so delicate, so much work... *sigh* just when I was appreciating my mature plants and all their fruit bearing-ness.

The trick now is to keep them nice and protected from EVERYTHING. Too much sun, critters, etc.

My plan, as I don't have any really thin floating row covers is to get some sticks, poke them in the ground and pop newspaper on top to shade them if needed, though the forecast is looking like it won't get to even the mid-90s, so perhaps it won't be necessary.

I might not even have to water at all for nearly a week if the forecast is correct, with rain next week too.

Less work=good (Hurrah!)

In terms of the critters, that's the tough stuff. I and REALLY gung-ho on critter prevention as I've had some ridiculous swallowtail butterfly caterpillar "infestations" and flea beetles and slugs lately, so alas, I have been spraying (gentle spraying) of neem oil dilution all around my plants as a notice for the bugs to "BACK AWAY."

I haven't been this excited about my plants coming up in a while. This fall, I just have some INTERESTING things planted, perennial vegetables such as mache, chard and beetberry and pretty japanese mustards and such have just gotten me super impatient to see them.

I can't wait until the bumper crop of tomatoes finish up so I can yank them and plant my other stuff:
Here is a map of my plan for fall/what I currently have going on in the garden (click on pic to see the plans clearly, and note, this is definitely not to scale):