Help with seedlings please!

12 years ago

I bought a jiffy greenhouse and planted some seeds on Feb 28.

Most sprouted pretty quickly so I put them under the lights. My fixture has two T8 bulbs and somewhat of a reflector. I have it about 2 inches above the tray.

I am new, this is my very first attempt at growing veggies. But I am reading a lot and hope I'm doing things right.

I know you can't tell very well from the picture, but some of these seedlings look quite leggy. What did I do wrong to make that happen? And, will these leggy plants survive and produce well?

And also, will I have to transplant these into a bigger pot before they get planted outside? When should I do that and how big a pot?

Thank you

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Comments (3)

tripleione
12 years ago
Sounds like you did everything correctly. You didn't mention temperature, but having too hot ambient air temperatures can sometimes cause the plant to stretch out more.

Yes, your plant should survive and do fine. Being a little leggy won't necessarily hurt your plants, unless they have very few leaves and are already flopping over. Then again, some plants have a tendency to stretch and flop over no matter how intense the light. Cilantro is an example.

You will probably have to move them to a bigger pot before you plant out. Different plants grow at different rates. You'll want to move them to a bigger pot once the roots become root bound. I'm not exactly sure how to determine this... I usually just move them to bigger pots when I think they are big enough, sometimes they are root bound and sometimes they aren't. I think if a plant spends too much time being root bound in too small of a pot, it may stunt its growth permanently, but I could be wrong. The plants will generally stop growing bigger once they are root bound. That's one sign to watch for.

As for how big of a pot, again, I don't have a real science behind it. I just move it to a pot that is a quite a bit larger, but not more than twice the size of the old one. Seems to work for me, at least for starting plants indoors. I assume you mean to plant these outdoors at some point.

Hope I could help a bit.
AustinGardenGirl
12 years ago
I'm new to this as well. Gave my first real go at starting from seeds last year, so I'm not much help, but I have read a TON. You didn't mention how long you had your lights on, but everything I read mentions to have your lights on between 12 and 18 hours a day. I haven't paid attention to the calendar when I move to bigger pots either, but if I had to guess, I'd say about 5 weeks. One tomato gardener recommend transplanting to bigger pots when they start to sprout their first real set of leaves (not the cotyledons - first two to appear). Good luck to us both!
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syntria
12 years ago
Looking great so far! Better than what I set up the first time around! I've been adjusting myset up over the last few months based on everything I've learned on here.

My only issue is I planted more than I have room for now I have like 50 plants and only two shelves of 2x4 spaces. x.x