Friday, April 29, 2011

not so fungi

My first attempt at sowing the peas, the germination rate was very poor. I really like snap peas so I want to have more than 4 plants. I read here that you can germinate the seeds in a paper towel. This way I can pick out the ones that do germinate. I dampened a paper towel, put the peas in it, spritzed it with water and put it in a ziplock bag.  I didn't read closely enough because I sealed the bag completely. 2 days later, I opened the bag and I see this:
 There were some seeds that looked like they were cracking so probably more seeds will germinate. But then I saw this:
The peas were all slimy and a few of them looked as bad as the above photo. Yuck. Sealing the bag was not the right move. I didn't want to throw them away so I got rid of the ones that looked particularly fuzzy and transferred them to this plastic container and left it open. I hope they don't all grow moldy...I want to pot the ones that are germinating tomorrow.
 I also noticed some white spots on the pea leaves. I don't know if this is some sort of sickness (not all the leaves had the spots). I couldn't find any information on the web, unfortunately.
Finally, I left the bigger plants outside all day. Most did OK, but I had one broken leaf/stem on the zucchini. Again, the wind. I cut it off at the base near the stem and will wait to see how they do. The stem was really prickly.

5 comments:

  1. The pea leaves look normal. In fact, they look very healthy. Google Images for "pea foliage", you'll likely see several close ups that look just like that.

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  2. Thank you Granny! I didn't know which terms to google. I tried "white spots pea leaves" and I saw similar picture with no commentary. It's difficult to figure out what is normal and disease when i don't know what the plants are supposed to look like :P

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  3. Well, white spots on pea leaves could be powdery mildew. That's not what you have, you have normal pea leaf coloration. At least all my pea leaves have look like that, so I assume they're normal ;-)

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  4. Wow. Glad to finally have an answer for this. Two years ago, I planted a ton of snap peas, and the leaves turned white-spotty. I thought it was a nutrient deficiency of some kind, but I could never find a straight answer. Kept me from planting more last year.

    Sorry for the late comment, but thanks for the insight, granny!

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  5. It was a relief to find out that the peas were OK...but I think it was too hot for them. I'm going to try again with the peas in the fall.

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