It's MUCH better if you bare-root and root-prune the plant when moving it into the gritty mix. I've bare-rooted hundreds of tropicals, some of them VERY large, with no problems. Al

Thank you mandolls and started_with_bean. I have a feeling that I have seeded myself into a corner, so to speak. Way too ambitious for my first year of serious flowers from seed growing project. I started with a tray that holds 72 inch and half cells plus about dozen 3" pots. Well, all those 72 cells had to be transplanted to larger pots plus some, like lobelia, were split. In short, I started with 10" X 46" area of seedlings and now I am at about 10" X 120" and growing. And now I have to transplant tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. No light for all of them, for sure. Vegetables will have the priority, no question about that. Hmm, I guess that I am over my head this year. Check the pictures on my blog and it will give you an idea about my dilemma. In a way I am lucky that we have so much sun in that sunroom. http://jerry-our-garden.blogspot.com/ Here is a link that might be useful: The sunroom.

Need more light. North facing is not enough. South facing but no direct sun is ideal. Certainly avoid direct sun for a few more weeks at least. Pale green or yellow generally indicates too little light. Red or pink is too much light. Dark greeny red is OK, but strong red and particularly pink means try a little less light. Keep the soil moist at all times for the first few weeks, longer with slow growing ones, but then start to allow the surface to dry between waterings. They will grow best with constant warmth and moisture, bright light but not strong sun. Many species will grow weel with constant moisture for a year or more but rot can become a problem, try to give them good ventilation. Hard to be more precise without knowing the species. Some Opuntias can be a couple of inches high in a month, some small species will be hard to see clearly by the end of the summer. Some are bright red and nothing to worry about, others naturally quite pale. I have some six month old Tephrocactus that are a really intense purple colour, seems to be normal and healthy. You can move almost any time they are big enough to handle. I like to leave them in place for as long as possible because transplanting can set them back and some species in particular are sensitive and may rot off. Once they are so crowded that they have no more room to grow then they should be moved or they won't grow as fast. Much easier to move when they are large enough to be kept on the dry side afterwards to minimise rotting from any root damage or minor bruising.

I usually don't move them to a bigger pot until they have 4 true leaves, but you can do it whenever you like. I just pull the netting off the peat pellet and set the pellet into the soil in the cup. Depending on the size of the cup (I usually use 9 oz. cups the first time I "pot up" the plants.), I may put some soilless mix in the bottom of the cup, set the pellet on top of that soilless mix, and then add dirt around the sides and top until the peat pellet is "buried". Remember that you can bury the plant deep in the pot, right up the the lowest leaves and new roots will form all along the buried stem. After the plants have grown SUBSTANTIALLY, I'll pot them up to even larger cups--usually 20oz. or larger. I prefer to use a light, fluffy, sterile (diease-free), soilless potting mix like Jiffy or something similar. In a sterile growing medium that is this light, though, the plants can dry out quickly and might even need to be watered once a day or possibly twice a day if they are in a really warm location. If you can't find something like Jiffy (it is a blend of peat moss and vermiculite I think), then you can use any bagged potting soil. I'll probably purchase Miracle Grow potting soil under those circumstances and add peat moss to it in a 50/50 blend. The problem with many bagged potting soils is that they are too heavy, stay too wet and slow down/kill plants. By adding peat moss (or vermiculite) to them, you lighten them up and improve drainage. I like to keep the lights so close that they are almost touching the top leaves of the plants. This helps the plants to grow without getting too tall and leggy. Leggy plants are, by nature, "tall and thin" and that makes them more prone to breaking in the spring winds once they are outside. They also tend to get sick easier. I like my plants short and stocky. If you can place the plants in a sunny window, or carry them outside for a couple of hours of sunlight in a location sheltered from the March wind, that's good for them. My plants have been going outside for about 6 hours a day, except this week on the snowy days. (They started with 1 or 2 hours a day and have worked their way up to six hours a day. If you put them out for 6 hours on their first day out, they'll sunburn enough to die.) You will notice that once you give them a little sunlight, they grow more quickly (sunlight is much more intense than indoor lighting) and get a darker green. Finally, don't forget the importance of wind movement, even if it is artificial wind. Tomato plants that grow with NO exposure to wind have relatively thin main stalks. To thicken up the stalks, set an oscillating fan on low speed and let it gently blow on them for a couple of hours a day. Setting the plants outside in the wind does the same thing, but too much wind too soon can 'cause windburn and even death, so you have to be careful the first few days they are outside. If you don't have an oscillating fan, just lightly run your hands back and forth over the tops of the plants, gently brushing the foliage with your hands. The movement will help them grow stockier stems and that is a good thing. One of the hardest things about growing your own transplants indoors is keeping them short enough that you can keep them under the grow lights. Some people think that the bigger and taller they get while inside, the better, but that is not necessarily true. It actually takes more skill and attention to detail to keep them short and stocky than to let them get leggy and lanky. (It took me a few years to really become a believer in this principle!) Keeping the lights low over them will not slow them down too much. Believe me, once the conditions are right to plant them out into the ground, they will take off and grow like crazy no matter how large or small they were when transplanted. Once the "right" weather arrives, your in-the-ground tomato plants can easily grow 1" or more in height per day. Dawn