Starting Seeds: Preventing Fungi and Damping-Off with Cinnamon

It's seed-startin' time on Virginia's tiniest farm. I woke up early this morning, grabbed my trusty old Carhartt hat and my coffee, and headed out to the back forty, where I hitched up the tractor to bring our seed-starting operation up from our damp basement to our sunny and airy kitchen. My son made sure I had plenty of farm hands to assist me, as you can see - Lightning, Finn, and two (two!) Tow Mater Trucks. Very helpful.
The seedlings made the temporary move in an effort to defeat the dreaded Fungus Among Us that had developed on the cheap-o peat pots I started everything in this year. (Note to self - next year, go coir or go home!) As you can see in the picture above, I deployed my crop duster over the Tiniest Farm in Virginia, using it to sprinkle cinnamon, which has natural antifungal properties, on the surface of the seed-starting mix and the peat pots.

Cinnamon has saved me from several Katie-created seed-starting disasters and even stopped a bad case of damping-off from spreading even further a few years ago. It's cheap (I think I paid a buck for my container of Trader's Choice Cinnamon), it's effective, and it's a great alternative to chemicals for those of us who hang with the organic crowd. 
Prevention is far easier than management; I'll cover prevention strategies (in other words, "do as I say, not as I did this year") in my next post. Right now, I'm getting ready to attend my first Dirt Works meeting with Tammy of Casa Mariposa. Fingers crossed that she's baked some cookies for our inaugural meeting...