The only thing growing in my soil appears to be the bugs that came with it. There are tiny little spiders (too fast to be mites), gnats, and I found a white worm of some kind right where one of my seeds was. I think the bugs came with the soil. I live in the middle of nowhere and this was the best "non-miraclegrow" soil I had. It looks like it's got all the things I want, but this is my first grow, so, *shrugs*

Should I keep the dirt and try to kill the wild-life (also, how?)? Should I discard the soil altogether and spend more money?

I didn't document the germination process. I guess I got too excited to get started. I picked the lightest two seeds, starting with the "whitest seeds" first. I soaked them in a 4-oz baby-food jar with the HGCC kelp solution. I soaked them for about 24 hours on a Spider-farmer seedling mat. They both sank nicely in the kelp-treated water. They were slightly cracked, and I could see the beginnings of a tail coming from each seed. I pulled them out and put them into a Tupperware-like container with 4 layers of paper towel under, and 4 layers above. I put the contents of the kelp-water into the container. The paper-towels held the water, and when lifted, nothing pooled in a corner., so no free-standing water in the bottom. I put the container on the spider farmer mat to finish germinating. I checked on them every day and noted that they weren't doing anything else. After a few days, I worried about the seeds rotting, so I fired up the tent, made some holes in the soil, and every-so-carefully put each seed into a hold, tail side down. The tails were nothing but a hint, but I could tell which way should go down. I covered them with plastic domes, and placed a black plastic tub lid over the domes to keep the heat in, and the light out. From that point, I checked on them every day, kept the soil damp by lifting the domes, misting the soil under the dome with a sprayer, once a day. Every couple days, I would poor a little water around the outside of the dome to keep the soil around the domes from sucking the moisture out of the domes.

However, the seeds ultimately rotted, and I kinda wonder if that happened while they were in the Tupperware container. I was listening to a podcast and it was suggested to dispense with the paper towel stage, going right from the water to the soil. I followed the HGCC germination video pretty closely, and I'm not sure where I went wrong. But I never even got to the point of having real tails coming out of the seeds. Ready to try another seed or two, but I'm hoping someone has some feedback before I start.