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Growing from Seed

First year gardening and starting seeds indoors

16 years ago

I have a 72 count peat pot flat, a 12 count peat pod flat, 12 dixie cups in an aluminum foil baking pan with clear plastic lid. Most everything is coming up but here is my discription.

Everything that has started sproting have pretty long stems, the stems are hitting the plastic tops and coming back down. All the stems are white in color. None of the clear plastic lids have any condensation on them and they never have. I have two of these flats on the frig downstairs. I burn wood for heat and the stove is in the basement. It probably stays 75 to 85 degrees downstairs, and 70 to 80 upstairs. The wood stove is vented through our ventilation system. So heat is not a problem I don't believe. I planted veggies on March 3, and flowers on March 4 and 5. They may be doing what they are supposed to but I have never seen any before. I have read don't put any under lights from a flat and take the plastic cover off until all have sprouted. I am not sure if I should start putting some of them under lights or not. I worried about having watered them too much fro mthe start. I just don't know what I should be doing if anything. I am thinking of putting a heat blanket on the table and set al lthe flats on top of it.

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Comments (4)

digdirt2
16 years ago
Hi dapper - Have you read through all the FAQ's here? They will be big help to you so I linked them below or you can just click on the link at the top of this forum's front page. You'll also want to read through many of the posts already here for even more info.

The long stems ( called "leggy") are due to insufficient light. Do you have a light set-up ready to use?

have read don't put any under lights from a flat and take the plastic cover off until all have sprouted. Not sure where you read this but all the seeds will never germinate at the same time. So once several of the seeds in the container begin to sprout you need to remove the humidity cover and put the container under the lights. You can also terminate the bottom heat at that time. Heat is used for germination only, not for growing on.

Some of the remaining seeds will still germinate but if you wait for all or most to do so, the first ones are already way too leggy and you run the risk of developing damp-off (see FAQ) and killing the seedlings.

The leggy ones will need to be transplanted deeply, to just below the bottom leaves, in another container - usually individual containers that you plan to use for growing them until ready to transplant to the garden. If you don't have cell-packs you can use small coffee or plastic drink glasses with drain holes punched in the bottom.

Begin to ration the water now too - the soil can be allowed to lightly dry out between waterings - too little water is better than too much. ;) Give them 16-18 hours of light a day and keep the lights close to the plants. Once the plants begin to develop their true leaves you'll want to give them a mild feeding of a diluted 1/4 strength liquid fertilizer unless the potting mix you are using already has fertilizer in it.

You'll find more details on all this in the FAQ's but if they don't answer a question for you be sure to let us know. ;)

Enjoy your plants.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing from Seed FAQ's
dapper
Original Author
16 years ago
digdirt....Thank You, Thank You, Thank You. I have read thru the FAQ's twice now and never really found anything that would help me for this. I am sure my plants are leggy. I read something, and probably from here or could have been from one of my books to cover the domes, so I put towels over all my flats. I now have the covers off of them. I don't have them under lights yet. I meant to get this big shelf from work that I can hang the lights from and I didn't get it today. I will get it tomorrow and set it up and have the plants under lights by tomorrow evening.

Should I go ahead and transplant those that have the really long stems?
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digdirt2
16 years ago
Once you have your lights set up, yes. If you transplant them and still don't have the lights for them they will just get leggy again. ;)

Dave
west9491
16 years ago
ah, so leggy seedlings can be transplanted so that you can bury all of the..um.....leg...iness? lol

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