Could it be minerals from the water?? I've seen that before.
OOOO...I'll be interested as I have some soil that has white, but to me it's like the white that shows up on a clay pot. Probably not at all the same as your white stuff. Can you post a photo??
K

Hello new guy Wes. Welcome! If this is just a little hairy looking fungus on the top of the soil, it is nothing to worry about. It forms after I first plant my bulbs and give them their first water. Just stir the soil and as it dries out it will just disappear. Make sure you aren't watering too much though.

-Frank

Without preaching about mediums again... let me just say that I've completely eliminated any fungal issues, and fungus gnats, by switching from a silty, peat based, organic potting soil to a porous, inorganic, free draining medium.

If redoing your entire potting medium system isn't something you want to do, you could always improve air circulation within the room... this should help your medium dry out a little bit quicker, which will help dry up any fungus or molds you may have going on. Either run a ceiling fan on the low setting, or set up a little table fan on the other side of the room, and run it on low. That should help stir the air.

Thanks for your responces folks kaboehm: I have it in a clay pot and its going to be hard to see the white stuff in pic I will follow Franks idea for a five day time frame if I see white stuff after that then jodix: you can bet I will change the medium As it is now the medium doesnot have any peat or that heavy soil flower bed stuff but I will trun on a small heat and cool air fan the extra air should do
I will only add with respect to you and others organicly growing as much as I can on all of my plants is my choise and I aim for 100%.

I understand wanting to grow organically... we grow as organically as possible outdoors in our gardens. The only problem with that is the very large difference between gardening in the ground (where organic growing works wonderfully) and growing in a container environment (where all organic bets are off)...

I'm sure you've read about the vast differences between the two types of gardening, but in short, a container environment doesn't have the worms, nematodes, bacterias, fungi, and other microscopic creatures all working together to keep the decomposing soil balanced with good and bad, and more often than not, the balance quickly turns toward the bad.

It's that constant decomp that can quickly cause a soil to collapse and suffocate a plant's roots.

Organic fertilizers aren't usually broken down enough to be immediately usable to a plant, and it's those worms and other tiny creatures that help to break them down. So when you water them in, they may either just run out the drainage hole, or they may remain in the soil, but unusable because of the unbalanced content of the soil.

We grow everything outdoors as organically as possible... and with good results. But indoors, in my containers, I go with a more inorganic approach, which keeps the environment hospitable to plants.

I'm sure that the folks over at the Container Gardening Forum can explain it better than I, but it's important for you to know that the two types of gardening are worlds apart!

I don't garden in pots inorganically because I'm lazy or don't care about organics... I do it because there's no real way to keep a balanced organic environment going within the confines of a pot.

Agree to the "no real way" to keeping a pot organic but there are temporay ways to keeping the pot medium very much organic. Regarding hippies in containers: What happens when we remove the bulb after it is done doing it's flowering thing ? Do we always use the same medium that was in the pot for replanting time and time again ? Do we not replace our clay containers or mediums as well ?
I know your not lazy, I never said you didn't care.
All I wished to say is, It is I who willingly takes on this organic hippie growing idea.( I am not the only one) Make no mistake I listen very well to you jodix (as well some others) I will ask you whats your opinon on course chopped walnut shells as a part of a medium on a second hippe I have in mind.

Thought for the day:
Whatever don't kill us can always be something we learn from
Wes
P.S. check your spam folder

If you are re-potting on a regular basis using fresh soil, then you stand a much better chance of being able to grow more organically. If the plant is only in a medium for a short time, the medium may not break down and collapse enough to harm the roots.

However, my experience has shown me that it takes less than one year for a bagged potting soil or a cocopeat product to break down within a pot. All of my bulbs that were planted in regular organic soils had some root loss after only one year. I found these products to be too fine in particle size, and not conducive to proper aeration.

I don't remove my bulbs from their pots after flowering. I don't force a dormancy, preferring to let them rest naturally. Mine must stay in the same medium for a minimum of two years, making an inorganic approach more appropriate.

Personally, I would avoid nut shells as part of a medium... I don't know what their PH is, and I don't know what they might do to a medium as they break down. They may create a more acidic or a more alkaline environment, but without knowing specifically, I wouldn't use them.

Of the ingredients I use in my medium, only the pine bark will decompose, and it does so at such a slow rate that the PH doesn't change enough to be harmful. The perlite and granite chips, of course, remain inert.

I appreciate that you find my postings useful... and I also appreciate that there are other ways to grow bulbs. I just want everyone to have a good experience growing, and sharing the options available is a way to make people think about their individual environments and make choices that will work for them.

I think many gardeners do things without knowing the actual "how" and "why" of what they're doing. I, myself, have always grown plants in containers without knowing much about how they grew, or why I used the mediums and other products I used. I thought it all too technical, too scientific, and I was amazed at how simple it all really is!

If you provide a plant with what its roots require, in a container environment, the plant will flourish... and all a plant really needs is something to anchor it, and something to draw its requirements of moisture, nutrients and oxygen from. It's a tad bit more complicated than that, but not by much! The goal is plant health and vitality!

PS - I checked my spam folder, and the regular one... if you sent email, I don't think it made it.