Of course the daylength and angle of the sun has something to do with how much light reaches the seedlings, but I don't think that's the only reason you see legginess on the seedlings. They simply need more light than they can get via a window at this time of the year. Winter sunlight is weak and inconsistent, and it is even weaker on cloudy days. When I first starting raising seedlings indoors in the 1990s, I raised them in a window, and it wasn't even a really sunny area, but I would carry them outside for several hours a day from the very moment they sprouted. They only had to stay inside on cold days. I had legginess issues all the time because they just couldn't get adequate light when they were inside, which is why I switched to using lights instead of relying on natural light. I don't know that lettuce and spinach are more prone to legginess than tomatoes and peppers, but because of their growth habit, they seem to tolerate legginess less well than the tomatoes and peppers. I would assume the low-E glass might allow less light to reach the plants. It won't matter to the plants if they have light during the day or at night as long as they have it. I don't see why you couldn't leave the lights on at night and turn them off during the day. I am assuming there is not a garage window that would let in just enough light to make the plants start stretching towards that window, thereby becoming leggy in the process. You can wrap your shelf with clear plastic or reflective mylar to help hold in the heat. A cold frame might work for starting the most cold-hardy seedlings at this time of year, but only if it is covered up with a blanket or something at night to keep out the cold and if it has a vent to allow excess heat to escape during the day time. All a cold frame does is keep frost off your plants and provide them with a warmer environment when the sun is shining. It does not keep them much warmer at night because it lacks both insulation and a heat source, so it cools down once the sun sets. Those pop up cold protection things and plastic mini greenhouses do not keep the plants warmer during cold nights and tend to roast them during the day without venting. If we ever build a cold frame (and I have saved a storm door to use whenever we get around to building a cold frame), we will insulate the walls. I use floating row cover material to keep frost off my plants on cold nights in the spring once they've been transplanted into the ground or into their permanent large containers, but even the best row cover made (and I don't have it) only gives you 10 degrees of protection. I have two different weights---one gives 2 to 4 degrees of cold protection and the other gives 6 to 8 degrees. So, even with them, I can keep the plants only slightly warmer at night. I have had some luck keeping plants warm on really cold nights by putting on two layers of the row cover that gives 6 to 8 degree protection, but just because you double the fabric doesn't mean it gives the plants 12 to 16 degrees of protection. I think it might give them 10 degrees if doubled. However, in spring, it is enough to prevent the plants from freezing (usually) on cold nights. We have a sunporch with insulated half-walls and glass windows and a greenhouse, and it gets pretty much just as cold inside both of them at night as it does outside. I could keep either or both of them warmer by heating them, but don't think it would be cost-effective. They are warmer during the day on sunny days though, and are uncomfortably warm on warm to hot sunny days, so venting is essential. In past years I have started leaving seedlings out on the sunporch all night long once the temperatures are staying above about 35 degrees at night. I won't chance losing them by leaving them out there on cooler nights. I use a heat mat to germinate pepper seedlings and that's about it. I remove the heat mat as soon as the seeds germinate because leaving the plants on the heat mat after that is not good for them. Every one of us has had to experiment to figure out what works for us in terms of seed-starting and then the hardening off of seedlings so they will be ready to go into the garden. I have found that what works best for me is to avoid all the "too's"...don't start seeds too early or too late, don't give them too much light or too little light, don't grow them in temps that are too hot or too cold, don't keep them too wet or too dry, don't expose them to too little air movement indoors followed by too much wind movement outdoors before they can acclimate to it and don't plant too many. (Well, I still have trouble with that last one.) As your home and property change, you will have to adapt your seed-starting practices accordingly. For example, I used to use the wrap-around front porch, which faces east and south, to harden off seedlings when I moved them out from the house. However, as our young trees and shrubs grew, the porch became increasingly shady, which is great on a hot summer day but not great for seedlings that need light. So, then I had to move the seedlings to a new location to harden off. You have to be flexible and adapt as your conditions change. You also have to be able to adapt to every kind of weird weather Oklahoma throws at you and your plants in spring. Starting seeds indoors is a wonderful process but it will drive you crazy if you let it. Things happen to young seedlings---a flat gets dropped and hits the ground upside down demolishing little seedlings, the cat decides a flat of tomato plants is a cat bed, a sudden wind gust sweeps a flat of seedlings off an outdoor table. It happens. I just always raise enough seedlings to make up for life's little disasters and don't let it make me crazy if a variety germinates poorly, is hit by damping off or meets with some unforeseen disaster.

You live in chaos! I'd go bananas! And, wow, I don't think I'd be up for someone my BF had smooched (or more) living in our home! That said, if you want to have more fairness and structure around the place, I'd suggest calling some sort of meeting to have everyone get on track about the chores. "There's a lot of us in a small space right now, and we all have different personalities, schedules and needs. So, let's take those into account and devise a plan for who's doing what chores and when. 'Tammy' you like a clean bathroom, could you do a twice weekly bathroom clean? 'Mike' how about you run around with the vacuum twice a week? 'Lorraine' can you please make sure the kitchen floors and the counters are free of crumbs each day? I will do the grocery shopping to make sure that we use our fridge and cupboard space effectively. 'Tom', you're usually the last one to go to bed, so can you fold up the blankets in the living room each night and make sure all the lights are out and doors are locked? Everyone should pick up their own mess right away and do their own dishes. Parents of small children, please help your kids clean up their messes." Present the simple fact that the cleaning must be done and that everyone should be contributing. Stand your ground! Don't be a doormat! Be firm about not being a doormat! No baloney - you are officially off processed meat!! It will take awhile, but if you stick to it, they'll figure out you mean business. You and DF might need to call a truce about your sister and his son to help keep the peace while your house is in uproar... These topics might need to be temporarily out of bounds - if you have to complain, maybe doing it to a friend is a solution? Agree to have a calm discussion once things settle down and there's less stress to deal with. I've done that with SOs/family/friends in the past and it's worked out well.

Thank you both for the advice! I have mid to high 40's in my area the next week or so, so I'm leaving it out for now. I am not as concerned about transitioning light levels now as its literally going 3 feet inside of its exact spot that its in. but I am concerned about pests. This is my first year with fruit trees and I've already lost my apples and fig to what I'm guessing was spider mites. One week they were fine and healthy then they started drooping and turning brown. I didn't see an pests so I assumed it was a watering issue but once it was too late (they were all brown/shriveled) I noticed fine webbing that seemed to be on the remains of the leaves. I assume they are beyond salvage but I cant bring myself to toss them out. I plan on washing my pot of the lemon tree and spraying it but I have no idea what to spray with or how much. I've sifted through the forums and seen HO and neem mentioned as well as insecticidal soap but I'm not sure what brand to get or how to treat. Any suggestions or favorites?

Naw, it's probably me Skip. Around here hoop house is kind of anything that's hoops, big or small, so long as a person can get around in it, lol. And the covering seems to count too, hoop houses have the more flexible plastic films or shade cloths. For some reason the few folks around here that have the rare solid panel hoop houses tend call them huts. Greenhouses tend to be the more square built things with windows or panels, lol. Heh, I've had a bit of fun with some sort of greenhouse stuff over the last few years. I've long used a handful of those little 4-shelf mini-greenhouses. I love them. One year later on in the season I spied a decent 6x8 or maybe 8x10 "pop-up" greenhouse on clearance and thought it would be nice to have a real space set up in the spring to move around in! As a test to see how it set up, I popped it up over my pepper patch as a season extender into the fall. Boy did it work really nice for a few weeks, peppers were still happy while the garden outside the greenhouse bit the frost... till one stormy night when Mother Nature managed to break the tethers on that greenhouse! We found it the next day. It had apparently puffed up and over the fence, cleared the brush line on the back of the neighbors yard, and landed a goodly ways into the field behind that. It was really funny when I asked my neighbor if he had seen a greenhouse laying around anywhere, and he asked Why? Did we lose one? The next year in the fall we wrapped the old dog kennel framework that I use for gardening anyway in heavy duty clear plastic and tarped the roof with white tarps. That worked extremely well for overwintering and a spring greenhouse, I was able to bump my flats outside way earlier than usual. But we hadn't but enough thought into support for those tarps on the roof, and we had serious sagging problems- ended up solving the watering need in the greenhouse but... wellll... ;/ Last spring the neighbor whos been in contracting his whole life is kind of getting into retirement and got a lot of stuff piled up in the barn, including a bunch of windows. He told me I could just have them all since he can't really use them and they are just sitting and he can tell I'm wanting to have some sort of greenhouse or something for all the gardening stuff I do around here. Some are probably good for greenhouse, some will probably end up becoming lids for raised beds to make for some cold frame action in the future.