Lessons learned thus far...

I've already learned a lot this year.  As of right now, it mostly has to do with starting the seedlings that we've transplanted.  We ended up losing quite a few of them, partly due to the two weeks of rain and partly due to being new to starting seedlings in this quantity.  There were two or three things that we should have done differently.  The first is that our grow lights were too far away from the top of the plants.  They should have been two inches above the tops and ours were in the neighborhood of 4+.  We think this is our biggest error and what caused a lot of the seedlings to get leggy.  Second, we should have turned off the heat source below the plants as soon as they sprouted and we didn't.  We just left it on way too long.  And the third thing that may or may not help in the future is to run a fan in the "seed room" to keep the air circulating.  Everything I read says that this helps keep spores (ie: mushrooms and other fungi) from growing on the top of the pots.  I'm thinking we probably should have done that because several of the seedlings had a nice crop of little bitty mushrooms growing with them in the cup.  Another thing we will do differently next year is to use a soil-less planting medium.  We went with organic potting soil to start, then added in organic soil-less mix to loosen it up but even that wasn't enough.  We found a deal on organic  potting soil and thought it would be ok, even though I know from my horticulture class last semester that virtually all commercial growers use a soil-less mix of some kind.  We were hoping to save some money.  It might have been ok if we hadn't had that two weeks of rain ~ that's when things really went downhill for the seedlings.  They had been looking really good up until then but some of them got really leggy (light source too far away, I think, as mentioned) and I also think they exhausted the nitrogen in their pots because their leaves started getting yellow-ish at the edges.  Ultimately, more of them than I am comfortable with losing laid down and gave up the ghost.  I know some losses are inevitable but I think we had more than we should have this year.   I am hoping that, if we apply what we've learned this year, next year will be better.