There are probably a few reasons they are behind. What type of soil are they in? Moving them outside during the day and inside for the night is stunting them as well. Leave them inside under lights until your temps at night stay above 45*. Then, start to harden them off and leave them outside for the rest of the season. In and out all the time puts too much stress on them because of the drastic changes in light, temps, humidity ect. If you need lots of tomato plants I would separate them, if not, snip the smaller one. Bury them up to the first set of true leaves. I am pretty confident they will catch up in no time to other purchased plants in 30 days or so once they are in there permanent spot. Good Luck. posting pictures always helps too! Keriann~

Wow. Thanks for the response. If someone can tell me how to post a pic I'll try to do that. For now let me say the plants have no problem supporting the top growth. When the sun is actually shining..the plants see sun from 730 am until 5pm via a window in my house. As a result they lean towards the outside. To counteract this I switch the orientation daily. (it is amazing to see them adapt daily) A few of the plants are 5-7 inches tall with more than a dozen leaves (cherryÂs and early girls) I do have all of April and most of May to get through before I put them outside but I intend to put them in my patio enclosure in pots in mid April. On sunny 60 degree days the patio gets a hot as 80 degrees with about 6 hours of sun. This is my bridge strategy before I eventually put them in the ground outside in mid May. My big boys are the ones that are starting to concern me. Some of the lower leave have yellowed/browned and fallen off. A few of the leaves has some very small yellow spots. I should say that the BB seeds came from last years crop. A crop that somehow survived LB.

I so understand what your feeling. While I myself did not lose a child my daughter did just a few weeks ago. Her baby girl (leah Rose) was due any day. My daughter went to her last appointment and the doctors could find no heartbeat. We were all stunned to hear the news...just a day before we were feeling the baby kick. She endured 12 hours of induced labor. The doctors could find no medical reason why it happened....prebirth SIDS they call it. To look in my daughter eyes and see the pain when she held her "sleeping" angel was more then I could bare, how was she going to stand it? People tell her oh you can have another one...she can't, her husband had a vasectomy. Or they say well just be glad you have other children...it doesn't make you miss the one you lost any easier. Or as my stupid ex husband told her...well you didn't want to have another baby anyway. True, she was upset when she found out she was pregnant again but that didn't mean she didn't love this baby. People often say well it happened for a reason, my daughter wants to know what was the reason then? Or when people tell her she's with god or a loved one in heaven...that doesn't help either...she wants the baby to be with her. If god didn't want her to have a baby why did she get pregnant in the first place. My daughter works in a bank and all of the customers knew she was pregnant...she dreaded having to go back and have everyone keep askin how's the baby? Or I am so sorry. Or it's gods will. She said each time it was like reliving the experience all over again. It's very emotional, I know and I have no easy answers for you. Some people don't mean to come off hurtful,they just don't know of a way to comfort you. You will have bad days and good days for a quite a while. Like another poster offered....if you'd like to chat email me. Tammy

Hi, I have also planted giant sun flowers around the same time and morning glories etc and 6" sounds fine to me. Are you having them on a window sill that is over a heater? Giant sun flowers grows very quickly, you can go away and come back during the day and it has grown. Lucky you with south facing window. How close together are your sunflowers? How many in a seed pot? Also marigold and petunia, once germinated are all fast growing plants, especially since the weather is warming up. Don't more seedlings until you get a second pair of leaves. I am wainting another week before potting my sunflower into individual pot and growing them on. Then probably a couple more weeks before putting them outside. Hope this helps. Keep an eye on them. Open your window to let in some air during the day, but close it again at night or after a couple of hours to train them.