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My herbs are wilting!!

tessaesque

Bring us a shrubbery!
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My cilantro and dill plants have both gone from sturdy, tall-standing stalks to green, limp-spaghetti piles of fail. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought maybe somebody here could help?

Basics:

Both plants were started from seed and sprouted relatively quickly.
They were begun with organic seed-starter pellets and are planted in 4" deep biodegradable started pods with a thin layer of soil (organic "feeder" soil that is supposed to provide nutrients for 2+ months) over the pellet (and soil below, obviously).
They were placed in front of an east-facing window and misted with water 2x daily (am/pm) to keep soil moist but not saturated. Cilantro had about 5 stalks at a height of 2" when it wilted, and dill looked like a 2" tall patch of grass about 1" square. Both had seed pods at the tips of some stalks. Both were in separate containers, and were kept in a room with an ambient temperature of 65-68 degrees F.

All other herbs that sprouted are doing well. Rosemary never came up, so I'm restarting this weekend.

Is there anything I can do to salvage these herbs, or should I scrap 'em and start over?
 
My cilantro and dill plants have both gone from sturdy, tall-standing stalks to green, limp-spaghetti piles of fail. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought maybe somebody here could help?

Basics:

Both plants were started from seed and sprouted relatively quickly.
They were begun with organic seed-starter pellets and are planted in 4" deep biodegradable started pods with a thin layer of soil (organic "feeder" soil that is supposed to provide nutrients for 2+ months) over the pellet (and soil below, obviously).
They were placed in front of an east-facing window and misted with water 2x daily (am/pm) to keep soil moist but not saturated. Cilantro had about 5 stalks at a height of 2" when it wilted, and dill looked like a 2" tall patch of grass about 1" square. Both had seed pods at the tips of some stalks. Both were in separate containers, and were kept in a room with an ambient temperature of 65-68 degrees F.

All other herbs that sprouted are doing well. Rosemary never came up, so I'm restarting this weekend.

Is there anything I can do to salvage these herbs, or should I scrap 'em and start over?

Too much sun . . . too much water . . . I'd say it's one or the other. Start over. Keep what you have as an experiment. ;)
 
"piles of fail" haha, good opening sentence.

Rosemary can live decades and become a sizable bush or hedge.
 
You probably need to start over. It helps if you rub your hand lightly over the seedlings as they grow several times a day if you can--it helps to build sturdy stems. I have never had much luck with those starter pellets--they are basically all peat as far as I can tell. I just use Miracle grow potting soil and it works better IMHO.
 
Going to seed at such an early age is a sign of stress. The plant is trying to complete its life cycle before dying. Not that it has a brain or anything, mind you.

I would suspect your watering regimen. Twice daily is far too much if watering and it might be far too little if you are just misting the surface. Once the plants are up and growing you want to water them thoroughly, but let the surface dry between waterings. You want to water enough so that water runs out the bottom of the container, though, so it's possible that you kep the surface moist, but not the root zone.
 
Herbs, once established, prefer drier soil. I think the misting may have stressed them too much. They also prefer warmer temperatures, the upper 70's is good.

They should NOT be fertilized at anytime!!! This will cause them to 'bolt', or produce flowers and seeds, which means the flavor will lessen rapidly in the plant. Always harvest before they bolt. Bolting can be slowed down for an extended harvest period by pinching off any forming buds.

You aren't the first... I had to learn the hard way also, lol.
 
Too much sun . . . too much water . . . I'd say it's one or the other. Start over. Keep what you have as an experiment. ;)

Dill likes full, blasting sun. Cilantro likes partial shade, especially in the heat of the day. You're right about the water.
 
I'll revise my watering system and restart those two plants. Since they only get direct sun for about 4 hours, am I under-sunning the dill?
 
My cilantro and dill plants have both gone from sturdy, tall-standing stalks to green, limp-spaghetti piles of fail. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought maybe somebody here could help?

Basics:

Both plants were started from seed and sprouted relatively quickly.
They were begun with organic seed-starter pellets and are planted in 4" deep biodegradable started pods with a thin layer of soil (organic "feeder" soil that is supposed to provide nutrients for 2+ months) over the pellet (and soil below, obviously).
They were placed in front of an east-facing window and misted with water 2x daily (am/pm) to keep soil moist but not saturated. Cilantro had about 5 stalks at a height of 2" when it wilted, and dill looked like a 2" tall patch of grass about 1" square. Both had seed pods at the tips of some stalks. Both were in separate containers, and were kept in a room with an ambient temperature of 65-68 degrees F.

All other herbs that sprouted are doing well. Rosemary never came up, so I'm restarting this weekend.

Is there anything I can do to salvage these herbs, or should I scrap 'em and start over?

You need to tell them what good lil herbs they are. Love your plants and they'll love you back.
 
My cilantro and dill plants have both gone from sturdy, tall-standing stalks to green, limp-spaghetti piles of fail. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought maybe somebody here could help?

Basics:

Both plants were started from seed and sprouted relatively quickly.
They were begun with organic seed-starter pellets and are planted in 4" deep biodegradable started pods with a thin layer of soil (organic "feeder" soil that is supposed to provide nutrients for 2+ months) over the pellet (and soil below, obviously).
They were placed in front of an east-facing window and misted with water 2x daily (am/pm) to keep soil moist but not saturated. Cilantro had about 5 stalks at a height of 2" when it wilted, and dill looked like a 2" tall patch of grass about 1" square. Both had seed pods at the tips of some stalks. Both were in separate containers, and were kept in a room with an ambient temperature of 65-68 degrees F.

All other herbs that sprouted are doing well. Rosemary never came up, so I'm restarting this weekend.

Is there anything I can do to salvage these herbs, or should I scrap 'em and start over?

Stretching of seedlings and weak growth is usually due to low light conditions like happens in the short days of winter. You might have better luck now that the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger. Herbs are high light plants, give them as much light as possible. Do you have a south window to grow them in?
 
You need to tell them what good lil herbs they are. Love your plants and they'll love you back.
but when you do this, do it in the basement over the hum of your grow-lights, so no one will see you
 
You need to tell them what good lil herbs they are. Love your plants and they'll love you back.

sam your words reminded me of this experiment

Two names ring out as giants in the field of sound and music research. They are Hans Jenny and Masaru Emoto. Both used inanimate objects to discover how sound impacts their physical makeup. Hans Jenny used sand and milk. Masaru Emoto uses ice crystals. Few, if any, have equaled Emoto-san's scientific method for showing how rythyms affect water, ice and since we are about 70% water—us. The classical music collected for this book ( on a two CD set) created beautiful ice crystals indicating profund opportunities for healing.

Mr. Emoto sees energy as vibrations moving through matter. These frequences are unique to various forms of matter, including organs and diseases. They are called hado which translates as "wave motion" or "vibration." Looking at the pictures of ice crystals while listening to the corresponding music can fascillitate healing by assisting the mind to atune with the vibration.

Here is how he does it as explained in the book Water Crystal Healing:

... I have collected these pieces of classical music, which my research has shown to produce beautiful crystals that suggest healing and well-being.

I'd like to describe the process of this research. We start with the premise that water has an ability to memorize various kinds of information. Because music is an assemblage of vibrations, it can be said that the difference in separate pieces of music is the difference in vibration. Water-crystal photography is a technique that can express the quality of each piece of music with a visual image. The water-crystal photographs in this collection of music were taken after each piece of music contained in the CD was played to distilled water. Here is a brief explanation of how we do this.
1. First, we play each piece of music with a set of speakers to the vial filled with distilled water.
2. We place about 1 ml of the water sample onto each petri dish. We do this with fifty dishes for each water sample.
3. We freeze the water contained in the fifty petri dishes at a temperature of -25 to -30 degrees centigrade.
4. Illuminating the frozen ice on each petri dish under a light microscope, we observe each water crystal and take sequence photographs with a magnification of 100X to 200X. These observations and photographs are made inside a large, cold room at -5 degrees centigrade.


Water Crystal Healing
 
I think dill actually needs sunlight to germinate so it has to be strated on the soil surface. The stuff is a weed at this point in my garden after having planted it just once so it is not a finicky plant. My guess is the pellets are sucking the moisture out of the plants. Those things soak up a lot of water and need to be kept wet.
 
Stretching of seedlings and weak growth is usually due to low light conditions like happens in the short days of winter. You might have better luck now that the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger. Herbs are high light plants, give them as much light as possible. Do you have a south window to grow them in?

The only south-facing window I have is in our bedroom, and it's a sliding-glass door. I don't really have any way to set the herbs up there. If it were warmer, I could put them in the "shed" the old homeowners built onto the backside of the house, but it's still a little chilly outside.
 
Stretching of seedlings and weak growth is usually due to low light conditions like happens in the short days of winter. You might have better luck now that the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger. Herbs are high light plants, give them as much light as possible. Do you have a south window to grow them in?

What he said! 'Leggy' seedlings are primarily due to lack of light. Get you a couple of CF's with a 'brightness' rating in the 5000k or 'daylight' range and suppliment their lighting. Place these within 6" from the plants and watch out for them getting too hot...we put a small fan near ours to keep them from getting too hot AND to gently 'flex' them which strengthens the stems (also as mentioned above).
 
My cilantro and dill plants have both gone from sturdy, tall-standing stalks to green, limp-spaghetti piles of fail. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought maybe somebody here could help?

Basics:

Both plants were started from seed and sprouted relatively quickly.
They were begun with organic seed-starter pellets and are planted in 4" deep biodegradable started pods with a thin layer of soil (organic "feeder" soil that is supposed to provide nutrients for 2+ months) over the pellet (and soil below, obviously).
They were placed in front of an east-facing window and misted with water 2x daily (am/pm) to keep soil moist but not saturated. Cilantro had about 5 stalks at a height of 2" when it wilted, and dill looked like a 2" tall patch of grass about 1" square. Both had seed pods at the tips of some stalks. Both were in separate containers, and were kept in a room with an ambient temperature of 65-68 degrees F.

All other herbs that sprouted are doing well. Rosemary never came up, so I'm restarting this weekend.

Is there anything I can do to salvage these herbs, or should I scrap 'em and start over?

They are probably drowning. Buy some hydrogen peroxide, reduce its concentration with water, and add it to the water. Upon contact with the soil, it will gradually break down, releasing gaseous oxygen and creating air/oxygen micro pockets. The hydrogen peroxide also will kill bacteria and fungus that may be attacking the roots.
 
I'll revise my watering system and restart those two plants. Since they only get direct sun for about 4 hours, am I under-sunning the dill?

It would like more, lol. Full sun is about 8 hours a day during summer. Lower levels of light, such as spring, 10 would be better.
 
Too much sun . . . too much water . . . I'd say it's one or the other. Start over. Keep what you have as an experiment. ;)

Do you have cats? Someone may be peeing in the dill. :mrgreen:
 
My cilantro and dill plants have both gone from sturdy, tall-standing stalks to green, limp-spaghetti piles of fail. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought maybe somebody here could help?

Basics:

Both plants were started from seed and sprouted relatively quickly.
They were begun with organic seed-starter pellets and are planted in 4" deep biodegradable started pods with a thin layer of soil (organic "feeder" soil that is supposed to provide nutrients for 2+ months) over the pellet (and soil below, obviously).
They were placed in front of an east-facing window and misted with water 2x daily (am/pm) to keep soil moist but not saturated. Cilantro had about 5 stalks at a height of 2" when it wilted, and dill looked like a 2" tall patch of grass about 1" square. Both had seed pods at the tips of some stalks. Both were in separate containers, and were kept in a room with an ambient temperature of 65-68 degrees F.

All other herbs that sprouted are doing well. Rosemary never came up, so I'm restarting this weekend.

Is there anything I can do to salvage these herbs, or should I scrap 'em and start over?

I always have a hard time with seeds, so I buy the plants as babies and have never had an issue . . . so far.

Good luck with them.
 
"piles of fail" haha, good opening sentence.

Rosemary can live decades and become a sizable bush or hedge.

I love rosemary for this area. You just can't hardly kill it off, and it blooms frequently, plus my bees LOVE the flowers. I planted one about 10 or so years ago that was just a small pot plant from the nursery, and now it's about 10 feet in diameter, and that is with me pruning it back at least yearly.
 
My cilantro and dill plants have both gone from sturdy, tall-standing stalks to green, limp-spaghetti piles of fail. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but thought maybe somebody here could help?

Basics:

Both plants were started from seed and sprouted relatively quickly.
They were begun with organic seed-starter pellets and are planted in 4" deep biodegradable started pods with a thin layer of soil (organic "feeder" soil that is supposed to provide nutrients for 2+ months) over the pellet (and soil below, obviously).
They were placed in front of an east-facing window and misted with water 2x daily (am/pm) to keep soil moist but not saturated. Cilantro had about 5 stalks at a height of 2" when it wilted, and dill looked like a 2" tall patch of grass about 1" square. Both had seed pods at the tips of some stalks. Both were in separate containers, and were kept in a room with an ambient temperature of 65-68 degrees F.

All other herbs that sprouted are doing well. Rosemary never came up, so I'm restarting this weekend.

Is there anything I can do to salvage these herbs, or should I scrap 'em and start over?

I plant both of those outside in spring, and they thrive until the heat starts forcing the cilantro to flower. The dill has a much longer lifespan outdoors in this area. The cilantro really shouldn't need much water, but when you do water, do it thoroughly. I water my dill and fennel usually twice weekly, and I amend the soil well to make it lush. It's a great butterfly plant, and imo, you can't have too much of it around.
 
I've heard that if you are starting herbs early that you should make some kind of greenhouse-type contraption for them with a plastic bag and holes poked in it so they can still get sunlight. Don't know how accurate that is or how long you would have to do that for.
 
I love rosemary for this area. You just can't hardly kill it off, and it blooms frequently, plus my bees LOVE the flowers. I planted one about 10 or so years ago that was just a small pot plant from the nursery, and now it's about 10 feet in diameter, and that is with me pruning it back at least yearly.

Rosemary is usually a pretty tough herb.
 
I plant both of those outside in spring, and they thrive until the heat starts forcing the cilantro to flower.

Last week, a couple warm days caused my (barely started) squash to flower? I hadn't thought of this factor as I'm a tropical guy.
 
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