starting seed in the house...

or straight into mother earth ...

and how early in your z4 ... can we rule out frost/freeze???

in my experience.. damping off revolves around wet COLD soil ... perhaps you need to delay planting until the soil is reliably warm ...

and how sure are you on the ID... since that ID defines the issue ... if in fact it is something else.. then we will just be flailing in the wind ...

damp of is a fungus.. so look to conditions that encourage such ...

more facts please ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

I planted the poppy seeds right in the ground well after frost. They grew well, and got about 6 or more inches high before they slowly started withering away, from the stems. I should have taken pictures. We did have a lot of rain at that time, but the bed is a raised bed, so shouldn't have been that wet. Plenty of sun for them, since its southern exposure. It wasn't real hot at that time either. I love poppies so much, and have such a hard time with them.

What is the trick to transplanting them? I hear they are almost impossible to transplant. I tried to do this, (digging them up from the flower bed (not pots) to put in a different location, but I think maybe l made it. I tried to dig up as much earth as possible around the root.

Thank you.

If they get to 6" or more and they're outside I'm thinking it's not damping off but something else. Not sure which poppy you're growing but I sow Papaver somniferum 'Lauren's Grape' in fall, it comes up in spring and I haven't had any issues with it.

tj

My first thought is critters. Could it be cutworms, slugs, and/or snails munching on the stems at soil level at night? They love cool rainy spring weather. Tender seedlings are apparently extra tasty. Sometimes they bite all the way through and the seedling falls overnight. Sometimes they just nibble on one side, and the seedling stays standing for a while but withers and dies.

Winter sowers who transplant poppies say the trick to transplanting them is to move them almost as soon as the seedlings come up, before the true leaves come out.

I more thing you might want to have your soil tested. There might be something in the soil that may be causing your problem. I just broadcast and let mother nature take its course. Sorry to hear you are having this problem, I know I lose lots of seedlings but so far my purple poppies are doing just fine and we have been getting heavy rains in our area and they seem to enjoy the weather. I expect them to start blooming this week. Have only been able to grown annuals so far but keep hoping grow something that I do not need to plant each year.