Goodbye eggplant

This morning, I was elated to see that my eggplants had begun sprouting in earnest. Like the proud farmer that I am, I told them how wonderfully they're doing, and instructed them to keep at it. Apparently I believe quite strongly in talking to plants.

When I potted the eggplants, we set them up in four inch cow pots so that we wouldn't have to subject them to transplant stress (this term immediately makes me feel quite sympathetic to the poor plants, and I seem to have made avoiding transplant stress a priority in my farm plans). One of my books said that newly seeded pots should be put in plastic bags until germination, so I put my eggplant cow pots in plastic bags (not sealed), and set them under my grow lights. I should note that my parents were very skeptical of this plan. But the eggplants were happy! Only four days in, and three had sprouted. I was feeling quite accomplished.

Then, eggplant tragedy struck. Those plastic bags that were keeping my pots all warm and germination friendly were also quite conducive to mold, and tonight we discovered that all of the pots had mold both on the sides and in the dirt. So, the eggplants are no more. We sadly bagged up the plants to prevent the mold from spreading to the other seedlings, and said goodbye to the eggplants.

On the plus side, I now have much more room for the other seedlings, which are doing great and will need even more space as they get bigger, so this may be for the best. The new eggplant plan is to buy seedlings later this spring. I was very excited for these eggplants, since they were the baby apple green variety that I think are just adorable. So, note for next year - no plastic bags around the pots!