I'm tempted to go out and buy some more SM, but the reality is, I gave like four bags away and never planned on looking back. 

You know, I got a gnarly slice on my fingertip while working with it, took a flat razor I was chopping it up with and sliced into the end of my middle finger, several skin layers deep.  Ever since then, the tip of my finger has a really weird callous on it in that spot (it is forked, like a hoof, with the slice clearly present) and the tip of that finger has persistently been tender to the touch, almost like it's rotten and infected, but it's not red. 

I think it's related to the SM, but it doesn't seem to be anything near what I read about online for SM-related infections (nor what I see in Google Images while searching for: sporotrichosis sphagnum).  My finger has been this way for at least 10 months now with it local to the tip of the finger only.  The callous usually takes about 6 weeks to fully grow back, then I end up sanding or trimming it off again.  I think I'm going to need to cut off the tip of my finger one day to get this to go away for good .... (sucks, eh?)

I know if I go see a dermatologist they're just going to think I'm f'ing crazy.  :\

JD,

This method of using sphagnum in a baggie is exactly the method I finally settled on by about March of this year. I would just get my desired amount of sphagnum good and wet & then squeeze out all the water I possibly could. Then I'd place a small amount in the bottom of my baggie, lay in a couple of cuttings then a little more sphagnum, more cuttings, etc. until I had a dozen or so cuttings in the bag with the moss covering them well.

Then, once they had good roots, I would transfer them straight to 1gal pots just as you were. This method worked best for me out of all the other approaches I experimented with.

In my pots I was using a mix of sifted perlite & sifted pine mulch (sifted to obtain a more uniform mesh size). With the perlite I was using a window screen to sift out the really fine particles. With the pine mulch I was just using a 1/2" plastic mesh & not bothering with getting the real fine stuff out. This all worked quite well for ME. 
 
Once it was warm enough to do so I gradually acclimated my plants to direct sunlight. Once they were hardened off enough to go out in the sun, I buried the pots about halfway into the soil with a little mulch up around most of them. I found that encouraging the roots to grow right into the soil gave them a huge boost of everything the little trees were looking for. I left them like that until just a few days ago when I dug them up & stuck them under my house.

The one thing I plan to do different this year is to not start most of my cuttings until late Feb to March. The effects of the natural warmth & sun seemed to be one of the greatest advantages for really getting the little treelets off to a great start. It's so much more difficult & time consuming to try to keep them alive in the house through the cold months of winter. Let nature work for us instead of us trying to work against it by growing them inside - IMHO.

This is what has worked for me & is just my opinion not necassarily my advice to anyone.   

Eukofios,

A few of the trees have survived and are flourishing. A few fruited in 2012 and the birds enjoyed the majority of the harvest. I posted about some of them here: Atreano, Abebereia, LSU Everbearing (did not survive), Mimi's Green Honey (did not survive), MVS Black, Nonnie's Purple (did fruit), Sal's EL (good fruit), Stallion, and Voiture #217.

does anybody here uses at heating pad? like the ones connected to usb to warm the coffe cup?

anyhow i found out that everything roots better with heat 23-27 celsius. problem is at night it becomes somtimes 7 and it hinders the rooting process.