hendi_alex wrote:Forecast of 44 degrees is the lowest I'll leave them out if not in a cold frame. They are good down to about 40 degrees, but a 40 degree forecast often means a local dip down to 36-38 degrees and the plants don't like that, wilting significantly by early morning. The plants usually spring back, but I don't like exposing them to under 40 degree temperatures.
I got some wilting with an observed low of 42F. But early in the morning as soon as I noticed it, I added a bit of lukewarm water, and they perked right up within an hour.
Mostly because at the time I thought they wilted because they were too dry, and then later realized it was probably too cold overnight.
This is my first time starting stuff from seeds indoors, so I've made a few mistakes.
One was not realizing my cat would browse on my seedlings when they started getting true leaves.
But from my mistakes... my advice is to worry more about "too much sun" than too little light, if the plants are still very young (like only 1 set of true leaves).
I was doing a whole clear out of the porch cleaning, and temporarily moved my plants off the porch & into the afternoon sun, for not very long at all, and several of the small young ones that hadn't been outside more than 2 days, died - clearly from too much sun, it was like they were burnt. (I think it was some petunias.)
I had read that they shouldn't be exposed to direct sunlight when first bringing them outside. However, they were doing fine with getting direct MORNING sun through the window inside, and direct morning sun unfiltered on the porch outside for days... so I hadn't thought it would be a problem.
Clearly there's a difference between: through the window, direct morning sun, and direct early afternoon sun.
I hadn't thought of this before, but I'm now thinking, maybe it has something to do with when the sun is higher in the sky it's going through less atmosphere? And I do believe that light through a window is filtered somehow (in a range our eyes can't see I think.)
I have not used any special heating or lighting equipment in seed starting, it's all been economy seed starting here ;o) ... light through the window from the get go.
When it's rained for a couple of days and mine haven't gotten any sun at all for a couple of days at a time, my seedlings have done fine anyway - just tended to bend toward the window on the cloudy/rainy days, so I rotated them more, cause that's what my MIL told me to do if they were bending.
My take on this is that a day without a lot of light probably wouldn't do enough harm to make it worth carting a bunch of stuff up & down stairs! lol
)
