thanks grizzman! great suggestion that will make the house smell good too! my plan for lighting is that i have some track lights that I'm going to replace with some grow lights. For my first garden its not going to be anything huge this is all an experiment.

Ok, I know this is a wierd question. This year, I did not get to plant as many tomato seeds as I would have liked with my 2 year old in his terrible stage. Since I could not find varieties that I really wanted locally, I bought some heirlooms through the mail. I have received the plants, they are all on the tall, leggy, side,I am sure from being stuck in a greenhouse. While the people seemed to take great care and time to pack each plant separately, the whole plant rolled in moist newspaper,I am not sure that this was the best way. When I received the plants and unwrapped them, several plants had all their leaves severely wilted, beyond repair. Not from disease or anything, but I think from the leaves laying on the moist paper for several days, it made them wilt. But the stems of the tomato plants are still very stury with no problems. So my question is, is it possible for these tomato plants to grow new leaves from the healty stem, even though there are no leaves currently on the stems? Talking to the lady who sent them to me, she says they will be fine and will sprout out new leaves from the stem. She seemed like as if it was no big deal. So I wanted to know what you guys think since I cannot seem to find anything on this subject. Even if new leaves will sprout, will it take a long time for it to happen, pushing the harvest dates further back? Thanks every one! WOW! Exact same thing happened to me, same source I bet too! I have a Black Plum that looks deader than dead. The others are about 16 inches tall and very leggy, a couple leaves on each of the others is dry like the Black Plum, could this be something serious and able to take over the others? Does the bad one need to be separated from the others? With the plants being so leggy just plant them as deep as possible or should I just start over? I would prefer to have strong, healthy plants if I am going to put the time in. I guess lesson learned though. Thanks!

Agree that the plant is watered far too frequently. Even high desert plants don't require watering that frequently. It also appears to be starving for nitrogen and phosphorous at least and probably other nutrients as well. Jobes isn't a commonly used garden fertilizer discussed on this forum as there are so many better ones on the market. So I can't comment on what it contains or how often it should be used but the label should offer some guidance on that. Daily watering just drains the nutrients right out of the bed so please cut back on the watering and feed those babies well. ;-) If all those wood chips are just on the soil surface no problem. But if they are also mixed into the soil then they could be robbing nitrogen from the plants. I'd sure pull them away from close in around the stem. Dave

The growing tomatoes forum is not heavily used any more. If you post your question to Vegetable Gardening, you should get some better input. I too have only grown outdoors, so I'm not sure what to tell you.