Outmaneuvering the Mold

Nightmare: I returned from a brief business trip to find my tender little seed starts being consumed by ghastly white mold!

Every single peat pot was afflicted. I panicked. And I did what every gardener/blogger does when she panics:

I googled.

So it turns out that gross white mold is what happens when

A. the starter soil is not sterile (sterile dirt? are you kidding me?);

and/or

B. when the humidity is too high;

and/or

C. the soil has become too compacted and does not 'breathe.'

I was guilty of A, B, and C, I admit. I honestly didn't know that one ought to, or even could, sterilize dirt, of all things. Lesson learned.

But instead of tossing the whole moldy mess into the compost, I decided to try some good old yin and yang. Too humid? Let's dry things out. Too moist? How 'bout a little sunshine? A little fungal? How about some chemical warfare? (organic, of course)

So I brought out one of my photography studio lights - the hottest, brightest sucker I own, and set up a tripod on the table above the seed starts.

Then, I placed a fan on low next to the trays as well, and let both the light and fan do their thing for about 24 hours. I also read somewhere that spraying the surface of the dirt with a very diluted solution of Hydrogen Peroxide would kill the mold, so I tried that, too.

All of this seemed to help, but the Eureka moment came when I was driving home from work one day stressing out about the mold situation. It hit me that the most powerful antimicrobial/anti-fungal agent I could think of was plain old raw garlic. So I blended the heck out of a clove of raw garlic and suspended it in water, and sprayed the heck out of the dirt with that.

Oh, and I also started watering from the bottom only.

Anyway, check this out:

Problem solved!