Cold, wet and sickly – that’s no way to start life. Neither is wrenching for the light, dizzy with bleach fumes, roots clawing through lifeless soil.

When you don’t believe in nuking soil to remove the bad bacteria and fungi or bleaching the hell out of your pots, you have to accept that whilst protecting the good guys in your soil you are also keeping the baddies. (I’ll be honest my decision is based as much around my own laziness as it is about the delicate ecosytems involves, really who can be bothered baking soil for an hour?!)

In the damp coolness of Pre-Spring you might despair as seeds fail to germinate, seedlings wither with yellowing leaves or worse a healthy green seedling suddenly rots at the base and topples over.

But it’s not your fault, it’s Dampening-Off! Wicked fungi that thrive in these conditions and rot your seeds and seedlings, before they have a chance. The solution is not sterilising with chemicals or blasting with heat (sterile and seeds just don’t make sense) The solution is as easy as making Chamomile Tea!

Watering your seed trays with diluted chamomile tea which has steeped overnight and again when the seedlings emerge can stop dampening off. It has natural anti-fungal properties and more importantly whilst it does not destroy all the fungi in the soil, it contains magnesium which not only aids germination by breaking down the natural enzyme inhibitors surrounding the seed, but also is integral to photosynthesis producing more resilient plants that are more resistant to disease.

Fresh leaves are meant to be better than flowers as they have more magnesium, so whilst tea bags will probably work if you can get a hold of a plant that would be best.

Tomato Experiment

As well as testing out my Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses my Tomato experiment is meant as a step-by-step way to test when to sow and plant out tomatoes in your local area for optimum results.

I want to test to see if tomatoes sown later really catch up to those planted later, and if adding beneficial bacteria to the soil really works!

I chose not to use cherry tomatoes in the experiment because really that would be too easy.

What: Tomato Periforme Abruzzo
Why: Good slicing or cooking tomato
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted for The Tomato Experiment
When: Packet expires DEC 2012 so planted 4 seeds in each pot
How: Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses, placed in polystyrene boxes on north facing verandah

What: Eggplant Listada Di Gandia
Why: Early maturing extending the fruiting season. Small, delicious with pretty striped fruit
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Packet expires OCT 2013
How: 6 seeds in a punnet sitting in a metal roasting tray with a plastic bag over the top to act as a greenhouse

What: Capsicum Mini Sweet Mix
Why: Had far more success with the mini varieties than their larger cousins. Produced through Winter!
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Packet expires MAR 2014
How: 6 seeds in a punnet sitting in a metal roasting tray with a plastic bag over the top to act as a greenhouse

What: Chilli Joes Long Cayenne
Why: Packet expired, no luck in past, just threw them all in to see if they would germinate.
Where: Heirloom seeds from Diggers Club, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Packet expires OCT 2011
How: Seeds in a punnet sitting in a metal roasting tray with a plastic bag over the top to act as a greenhous

What: Tomato Purple Russian
Why: Early fruiting variety.
Where: Saved from the garden last year, between two paper serviettes, to be planted in my Crop Rotation Plot
When: Saved MAR 2012 from tomatoes sown last year from Diggers Club
How: Tray on north facing window sill with wet newspaper underneath to prevent drying out. Interesting to see how compares to tomatoes grown in juice bottle greenhouses.

For more information on dampening-off and natural remedies please check out Easy Organic Gardening by Lyn Bagnall it’s amazing!