If you start a lot of seeds indoors, you've probably seen it at some point: happy healthy seedlings one day, then wizened stems and floppy seedlings the next.

Damping off disease is pretty common, especially when you're starting seeds en masse and especially if you're using a humidity dome, have a heavy hand with watering, let your seedlings get super tall or all of the above.

It's a condition that makes seedlings keel over and die overnight, which means it's near impossible to treat by the time you notice it.

But damping off can be prevented, and quite easily at that with a simple gadget. If you struggle with weak, wiry-stemmed seedlings that stay abnormally small, you may be dealing with damping off.

​Here's how you can keep damping off from spreading to your other seedlings (and how to prevent it from happening at all).​

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Now, let's talk about cinnamon. I feel like this ranks right up there with coffee grounds and banana peels as far as "miracle" garden ingredients go. 🙄

One of the oft-touted remedies for treating damping off is sprinkling cinnamon on the soil around the afflicted seedling. Heck, even I've tried it.

But cinnamon's success rate is spotty, and while it does have antifungal properties, the cinnamon you keep on your spice rack probably isn't the right cinnamon for the job. At best, it probably worked because it helped the soil dry out (since excess moisture is one of the main causes of damping off).

So no need to waste time with it—just follow my simple tips to prevent damping off from happening in the first place.

P.S. Cinnamon isn't the cure for damping off, but these 9 tips will help prevent your seedlings from keeling over suddenly.

P.P.S. Don't forget my special offer to celebrate the first week of spring: Enroll in Lazy Gardening Academy by Friday, March 27 (paid in full) and get complimentary access to my 1-on-1 virtual garden coaching! (A $200 value.)