What to do after calla seedlings go into individual pots

Question

I grew over 50 calla lilies from seed but made the mistake of keeping the lid on too long & I believe they started to get damping off disease. They all looked really good but the green leaves just started falling over one by one, so I took them all out & carefully repotted into individual clean tiny pots. They’re still struggling a bit & I can’t tell when they want more water because the pots are so small. Also, I don’t know if I should put them in direct sun and for how long being how young they are and given the tiny pots that I think would dry out too quickly.

I am in Green Bay. I’ve been keeping them outside against the house on a table & they’re getting morning sun. I’d say around 1 or 2 pm I check them, the soil seems dry so I give them a bit of water but within the next day or two I notice a couple more leaves have fallen over. Yesterday while I was gone, I left them out and it rained quite heavily and this morning they were still too wet so I repotted them again into dry soil, but have not watered them yet. They have a few roots on each! Some look in better condition than others. I only have 10 or so of these left I’m so sad to watch them die in one by one after my very first try at growing seeds and seemingly early success 🙁

So my main questions are…
Once I get a couple leaves on them and get them into their own pot, what is the course of care?
How much sun do they want at this point?
Do I fertilize them at this point?
Should I be keeping them outside at this point or should I bring them back in the house with the air conditioner on and being cool I thought the point was to try to avoid that and keep them warm.

I want to keep them in a pot because I over winter them in their containers and it goes well for me.

Answer 1

One of the secrets my mother taught me was that people with green thumbs also had great big garbage cans! Meaning you don’t get a “green thumb” without losing a lot of plants along the way. Also, when you grow things from seed, you always lose a big percentage of the seedlings. I know it’s hard, but keep trying. At this point, if I were you, I think I’d get the seedlings out of those “tiny” pots, into pots about 4″. (If that’s what you mean by tiny pots, just forget I said that.) You can set the pots into a pan to hold water, so they’re not constantly getting wet then drying. Leave them where they are, so they get some sun, and don’t worry about fertilizing. Here’s an article about growing calla from seed: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/bulbs/calla-lily/calla-lily-seed-info.htm
and one that talks about transplanting and keeping them in pots: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/bulbs/calla-lily/transplanting-calla-lilies.htm
and also an article you might find interesting: http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~essig/Florida%20Gardening/2001-02%20The%20Secret%20to%20Great%20Calla%20Lilies.pdf