Well I have some updates on my seeds. Two weekends ago I thought I'd start taking cuttings of a few of the seedlings so I could experiment with the timing of the needle size when the cut is made. As soon as I got one done I got a phone call and had to leave the house. I figured I'd leave that one to be the guinea pig just in case it was still too early. I planted it in a small terracotta pot in a mix of seedling starting soil, vermiculite, and perlite within a free flowing mix and covered it with a plastic zip lock bag.
Two weeks later it seems to be growing and doing well.
The rest of them I waited another week to cut and only selected 7 of the ones that were doing the best (8 total including the one done earlier). As I said before, I don't have the room to grow hundreds of them so I'll keep up with these and hope for the best- still have more in the fridge as backup.
Anyone use these biodegradable pots before? It's the only ones I could find quickly because I didn't want to miss the pruning window, but now I regret getting them. I figured they'd last at least for a bit but they're already starting to break down because of the moisture.
I cut the 7 like before and planted them in the same mix but they ended up shorter than the first one I did.
I then used some old wire to create a support "beam" that would keep the top of the plastic bag from touching the seedlings- kind of like a tent.
So far I haven't lost any of the cuttings yet although they've been covered since they were cut. Most cutting deaths that I've read about so far are due to not covering them afterwards so we'll see how they do.