Thanks brooke, altair and jodi! Altair - I think the hardest part of the entire process is the deflasking and keeping the seedlings alive part! I was intimidated at first too, but the process is not incredibly complex and once you have them in flask, you just sit them there without a care for months and months, and the seeds do the work! I would highly suggest anyone interested to experiment...you can grow a lot of amazing species (even though it'll be years before they flower) that aren't readily available. Brooke-That is too bad about the border. What is the US policy on bringing plants across customs? Canada allows up to 50 - something may be arranged but we'll keep in touch :)

I went back to walmart last night and you know I noticed on a few packs of ferry morse seeds, like the yellow onions, lettuces and mesculin that over the packing date they actually have a sticker on them with a date for this year. I seriously wonder if the company got back the seed from past years and just put a new packing date on them and covered the old with this sticker. Kinda tacky, of course old seed doesn't bother me but I still think it is tacky!! I will say this I have always had great germination rates with ferry morse seeds, actually some of the best I get of all seeds that I have ever tried, but it is still tacky and misleading. I say discount those boogers!! LOL

Daylight, or cool white, and even warm white bulbs do not offer enough of the spectrum for good plant growth. You want to get as much of the light spectrum as you can, or you end up with spindly long plants. Give those peppers another week, and then reseed the empty pots that failed to sprout. The lights, to be efective need to be just 1-2 inches away from the plants top leaves. When I grow asparagus, the spears climb up ito the fixtures and wrap themselves around the plant grow bulbs. Kind of funny looking when you cant eevn see their tips. I do use a PCH product, and its made expressly for seedlings. It comes in a plastic jar as a blackish powder you mix with water. I use this along with some 'Thrive', which only needs a few dros per gallon. Both give me some very healthy thick stalked plants. No heat mats are used once the lids are off. But because yours are in a cool area, they may need a bit more. I can't grow plants in my basement as its just too cold. Temps in winter are down to about 45 to 50 down there. Years ago, my dad tried to, by making a big plastic tent with a heater, but it just didn't work. Once I have plants that cant fit the shelves they get moved to an open area where I have 150 Watt mercury vapor lights over them. These are hot, and can cook the top leaves if too close. They are fine even at 6-10 inches away, which is fine for my needs.

It does not sound like the lights should be the problem (especially if you use fluorescent). It could be damping off (damping off is a common description for seedling disease and it does not always attack the stem only). The problem can also be low humidity. We have found that impatiens do best if kept under humidity plastic for a few days after germination. Also, avoid temperatures below 65 deg F for the first week. Luckily, you can take cuttings from impatiens really easy. When they grow a little bigger (6-8 weeks) cut stems off with 3-4 leaves on each. remove lower 2-3 leaves and put in a cup of water to root (change water daily). In 7 days they should root and you can put them up (cover with plastic for 2-3 days after you put them up). You can double your amount of impatiens this way. Very easy, and very fun. By the way, you did remember to water, e.g. the seed starting mixture was not allowed to dry out, right ?