Transplanted? The pots are quite big. Do you mean take the weaker ones out?

And thanks for the lighting advice.

"The pots are quite big..." In my experience, seedlings like a smaller pot to begin the growing process. I start my seeds in a one inch square plastic pot, this works for them for maybe a month or so, then they go to a bit bigger pot, then one more up-plant before they go in the ground or to the large, final growing container.

And yes, they are leggy because the light is too far from the plant. I keep the light almost touching, as has been pointed out by Dave. HTH. m

With regard to the distance of the light fixture, it's easy to be mistaken. One looks at a light and says, "Hey, that's bright enough for me to read and play cards by ... must be great for plants". Nope. Indoor light is VASTLY fainter than sunlight. Your eyes compensate to make sunlight dimmer and indoor lights brighter. With standard fluorescent bulbs, you can try to approach the intensity of actual sunlight if the bulbs are an inch or two away. The illumination gets fainter fast as they are moved away.

This isn't about seeing your plants nicely. It's about flooding them with light.

Let's get quantitative. One 30W fluorescent bulb puts out 3000 lumens. A few inches away from a surface, maybe that bulb is illuminating a 0.1 square meter surface altogether which makes an intensity of 30,000 lux on that surface. The full sun, shining straight down on that same surface, produces an illumination of 100,000 lux. So no, even with the light bulbs a few inches away from your plants, you don't really even get the equivalent of full sunlight. With the lamp a foot or two away from the plants, you're illuminating a square meter or so, and the lux number drops to only 3,000, a factor of thirty lower than sunlight. That's a typical heavily overcast day. Get those lamps close!

In the era before widespread use of fluorescent lamps, indoor gardening was nearly impossible. If you put a plant an inch or two away from an incandescent lamp, it would get fried.

Mine are just sprouting.

Just a suggestion, but it is best to remove the peat pots they are in whenever you decide to plant them outside. The peat container will restrict the roots and if not buried deep enough will wick moisture away from the tomatoes.

Like the others said, the light should be an inch or two from touching the lights.

"Transplanted?" Yes, assuming you intend to keep all of them. Starting seeds in full peat pots isn't ideal but since you did then they are quickly getting overcrowded and that too makes leggy plants. So either snip off the extras in each pot and repot the one you intend to save deeply into that same pot OR transplant them all into one of those pots each and plant them deep. They are going to start falling over if you don't as the stretched stem can't support the leaf weight.

And like Gary said when going to the garden be sure to strip off all that peat pot first.

Dave

How long do you guys have your lights on (duration of light) for your seedlings you start indoors? I have mine on from 6am - 12am. Do you guys think 18 hrs is too long?

I use 16-18 hours on the lights but the time of the on cycle also depends on the ambient light in the area you are growing so 6 am to 12 am may not be the best time.

Dave

They are in a completely blacked out room, when the lights are off, there is zero light.

As noted, the best lights even up close still aren't as bright as the sun. So you need to illuminate plants with them longer than they would be sunlit outside to make up the difference. But plants do need dark time. There are separate biochemical reactions that take place with less light. I use 18 hours of illumination as well.

I lowered the lights, they are just barely over the tray now like a 1/4 of an inch gap in between the lights and the tray.

Make sure the tomatoes do not touch the light. The light will burn them.

My tomatoes often accidentally touch my fluorescent lights. No burning ever seen on my end. Of course, where they touch, they shadow effectively.

I usually seed about 3-5 per pot depending on how old the seed is. I wouldn't transplant at that stage, it's faster to reseed, (it looks like they just cracked) I'd thin em down to 1 per pot if you have enough seed, if not wait to translpant... Keep the lights close to the plants, It's ok if the light touches them.. Consider adding a fan, even if it's just for 5 minutes a day, it helps tremendously in the long run and don't saturate the peppers.

If I decide to re-seed, when the tiny little sprouts come up, should the light still be super close? You would pull the light slowly up as they grow towards it, right?

This is my first year starting indoors, so I'm sorry if these questions seem a little...strange.

I wouldn't re-seed unless you need more plants, do thin though.. they look pretty much normal to me, and even still I wouldn't.. you can transplant them deeper which will take out any leggyness, they will do fine. but yea of course, you raise the light as they grow, if they start touching it or get close to touching raise about an inch. Tomatoes will naturally shoot up that high under that light. They do start with vertical growth then pack on horizontal growth. Its rather normal, you caught it soon.

"They are leggy true but they are ready to be separated and transplanted too so when you do it bury all that exposed stem under the soil."

Hey Dave, do you do this with anything other than Tomatos? I saw a youtube video of a guy burying nearly the entire tomato seedling but I haven't seen anyone else do this to any other kinds of newly sprouted plants. Thanks!

" do you do this with anything other than Tomatos"

Anything that gets leggy or develops weak stems. Posts here have talked about doing it with all the brassicas, peppers, eggplants, etc. In some cases more roots will develop all along the buried stem, in some cases no roots develop but burying deeply supports the weak stem.

Search pulls up lots of discussions about it.

Dave

bury-stem/topic discussions

I plant my tomatoes about 6-8 inches under the surface.

My seedlings so far

Looking good, especially for peat pellets. Be sure to strip off all the netting before planting them.

Dave

the light has to be as close as possible.. i have 8x 26W Cfls (each are 100w equivalent) over a seedling tray and the bulbs are within 2 inches of the seedlings.. once they're a bit bigger i transfer them to HID lighting (250W-400W).

if you have a fan (very light breeze) blowing above the plants (not directly at them) then you can bring the lights very close. you just need to put a fan to keep the heat from building up.

i would also remove the diffuser on the bulb/fixture.

here is where your fixture should be:
put something under the pots on the right side to bring them up since the right side are taller.

This is from tonight

Here's an update to them now. You think the legginess got any better? I was looking online and it said to add a liquid fertilizer after a few weeks and tomorrow will be a month. What do you think?

Thanks.

They look pretty healthy, but I would replant them with all that bare stem buried

Yeah man, they will root nicely. I bury mine up to about an inch under the leaves.

A diluted liquid fertilizer only. Not full strength. A lot of bare stem there that needs to be buried. As more top growth develops the stems won't be able to support it and will fall over before long.

Dave

How deep do you suggest I bury the tomato stems in the soil?

As much as possible. All of it when possible. Common recommendation posted here many times is "up to the top cluster of leaves". Use deep pots if necessary and if your pots aren't deep enough then you can even carefully coil or bend the leggy stem to get it buried. Some of the previous discussions I linked above include before and after photos.

Dave

Here is a photo that shows how it is done into a large container. Same method works with smaller containers to.

https://growerflow.com/forum/how-to-fix-tall-thin-and-leggy-tomato-plants-t94.html

Bury the stem, to the extent you can. Not the leaves. Keep them well above the soil.

i wouldn't bury them deeper than the cotyledons.. at least until they plant is more established and they fall off.

edit: from the looks of it, that's all there really still is. at this point, i'd just bury them half way and wait until they develop some more. you always run the risk of the stem rotting when they are that young if you bury the whole thing.

"you always run the risk of the stem rotting when they are that young if you bury the whole thing."

Sorry to disagree but I have never found that to be the case. In fact deeply burying the entire stem is a very common practice - both with seedlings and with established transplants.

And once the true leaves develop the cotyledons no longer serve any real purpose so burying them is not an issue. The risks are far greater from a leggy stretched stem and the poor circulation it indicates than from burying it.

Dave