Frustrations with seeds

Hubby and I went all out this year with seed choices. We did our first planting of brassicas and greens in early February . . . and got nothing. We used a mini greenhouse and put it in a warm place and kept evenly moist. We got 6 lettuces out of the flat of 60 seeds. When I transplanted those outside after carefully hardening off - they died, some instantly (broke off at the root) and the rest in 24hrs.

Undaunted we did another flat in early march. Out of 60 we got 4 lettuce sprouts, 4 hollyhocks and 6 morning glorys. 2 days later all except the morning glorys are dead.

We decided they got cooked, since the roots seemed good still, but the tops were brown. Mid March we sowed yet a 3rd flat. It looked good. Sprouts came up with Romanesco broccoli, Cheddar cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, hollyhock, foxglove and more morning glorys. They too died within days under mysterious circumstances.

Starting from seed is not new to us - we have done at least some tomato plants that way every year. We have grown lettuce and kale and corn in our previous location.

We started reading. All books say that starting from seed is an easy thing that anyone can do.

Our frustration mounted. We are now out of pepper, foxglove, lavender, and blue picote morning glory seeds.

We gave up on cold crops, decided to direct seed this week. Yesterday I planted a flat of tomatoes. I used cups leftover from our last BBQ (some still have people's names on them) that Hubby had drilled holes in. In the evenly moist 77 degree area they should, according to the experts, germinate in 6 to 8 days.

I'm waiting. . . but I have a tendency to glare at them suspiciously, I'm not sure that helps.

The morning glorys from our 2nd planting are doing fine BTW. They are in their own cups outside, covered with the bottoms of 2 liter pop bottles. But I can't eat those.