Seedling Sorrows

Maybe I'm just worried over nothing, but some of my thyme and Swiss chard seedlings are acting weird. First of all, they grew really quickly for a very long time, but now they almost seem to have stopped growing. On the other hand, they seem a lot shorter than they were before because I transplanted them. Maybe they are growing, but most of the growth is underground or something. In any case, I got some liquid fertilizer to help them out. That's what we use at work, and plants respond magnificently.

Secondly, one of my Swiss chard seedlings died on the trip back to campus. I looked at it one minute, and it was fine. I looked at it a few minutes later, and it was completely wilted. The next minute, it had disappeared. This was strange. The good parts about that are that A) that particular plant was runty in the first place, and B) there's a seedling attached to it that hasn't surfaced yet, so maybe that one will take its place.

Rest in peat. I mean peace.

The third issue I'm facing is that some of my Swiss chard plants are defying the laws of phototropism. Instead of growing toward the light, they've started growing toward the ground. Or maybe they are bent over for some other reason? I haven't been able to determine the cause of this unusual behavior.

Perhaps I am overwatering these little dudes. I really don't know the appropriate amount of water to give them. All I know is that, at work, we only water seedlings when they're completely dry. That's what I've been doing here, but of course the watering equipment, media composition, and light are different.

The plant in the foreground is one of the few that's still going strong, but as you can see, its neighbor in the background is having trouble.

Here are the thyme seedlings. I know these are slow germinators, so maybe they just grow slowly too. They look pretty much the same as they did a few weeks ago, except a couple seedlings have died and a couple more have shown up.

These are the departed plants. I think I forgot to water these for a couple of days, and then this happened. Since thyme spreads so much, I don't need many plants, though.

Have you ever had a plant die mysteriously before your eyes? Have you ever treaded uncharted waters when it comes to plants?

Next post: hopefully something cheery.