Hey everyone,

About a month ago on a whim I bought a little flat of 9 collard and 9 kale seedlings and wanted to put them in containers. I didn't have much money on hand at that time and just bought a couple bags of cheap organic potting mix consisting of "peat moss, composted pine bark, composted forest materials, and dolomitic lime."

At first I just potted 2 collards and was going to wait until payday to get the rest of the potting mix and then do the rest. A few days later when I got paid, I bought more bags of the potting mix and I also bought a bag of composted cow manure (0.5-0.5-0.2) to mix in with it. I potted all the kale seedlings and the rest of the collards.

It's been about 4 weeks since I potted the rest and the 2 collards I potted first with just the potting mix are doing amazing but with the exception of 1 collard, the ones I mixed in the manure have only showed minor growth.

Why is this? Only 1 of the collards with the composted manure seems to be doing as good and that's strange. I didn't have a container big enough to mix the potting mix and manure all together so tried to do each container separately at a 3:1 ration of mix to manure. I'm guessing the one that is doing good had less manure. Did I use too much in the rest? I am thinking at some point the manure will decompose a little more and hopefully they'll start growing but should I just go ahead and just repot them in straight mix?

Also if it is relevant, being in FL and it still being a little on the warm side, I did mulch all of them with wood chips to help keep the soil cool and moist.

Thanks for any advice.