Started my seeds!

[rainbowgardener]

Yup, get those babies more light ASAP! They are pale and stretched and leaning toward the light.

Show us a picture that shows the whole tray and set up, re what happened to the ones that didn't sprout. It may be that they still will. There's a lot of individual variation in seeds in how fast they sprout. I think it's an evolutionary protection. (In nature) if they all sprouted at once and two days later there was a huge storm or freeze or something, the whole generation of babies would be wiped out. If some of them are still protected underground, then there's more chances to try again.

And then there's a lot of "micro-climate" variability in things like did all the seeds get covered to the same depth, get the same amount of water, etc. In the picture you did show, some of the cells look empty. Was that on purpose?

[Aida]

Ha, Rainbow! That's the thing, about the light, they literarly grew that much in the 8 hours at school- it was crazy!

It actually wasn't on purpose. The tablets of soil that came with the set up, or whatever, were smaller in some? I don't know.

[ElizabethB]

Rotate your tray. Your seedlings are leaning towards light. Rotate once or twice a day. Good luck - looking good.

[applestar]

You want to concentrate and gather all the reflected light possible. Surround seed starting area with reflectors -- mirrors, foil/Mylar covered cardboard, WHITE surfaces, etc. I use accordion folded mylar windshield sun shields to close off the front of the seed starting shelves -- they're lying around useless for the winter anyway. Fold to open for access, unfold and clamp to an edge to cover. Inside of chip bags -- get the giant party size bags if you can, but smaller bags can be tapes together.

Her are some lighting ideas -- Adapted from a bedside lamp:

It looks like this -- I'm using a rectangular aluminum foil lasagna tray as reflector. Extended swivel Y splitter holds a soft white and a daylight 100W equivalent (26W) CFL bulbs. I shift the containers by 1/4 turn every day.


Here's a 10" clip on utility light with socket extentin and a Y splitter. Looks a little hokey but a chip bag to widen the reflector so the exposed bulbs aren't blinding the rest of the room (and why waste the light?)

[rainbowgardener]

Well... if you are trying to grow your seedlings without lights, just with the window, the reflectors and collecting all the light would be really important. If you are growing big plants and getting tomatoes to fruit indoors in winter as applestar is, the reflectors are really important.

If you are just starting seeds and growing them to transplant size, just having fluorescent tubes a few inches directly over the plants is fine and you don't really need all the rest (not that it would hurt if you are in to it).

[applestar]

Umm... My point was that if you don't have dedicated light fixture/shop light, etc. You can still get some light on them.

Also, I dislike those large trays and cells because I don't grow that many same seeds at a time, and if you start different kinds of seeds in cells of same tray you run into trouble because they won't germinate or grow at the same rate.

Check out the recycled seed starting containers sticky. I prefer to sow same seeds in community containers just big enough for the number of seeds I want to sow. Even then, there are fast germinates and slow pokes, but you can up pot the ones that grow faster and then there will be more room for the slower growing seedlings

[Aida]

Yup, no worries guys! Like I said, I do have a fluroscent lights that I'm getting today. Those are really creative set ups, applestar. I think I'm just going to set up the tray under a window, and shine the light from the other side(maybe cover with a white sheet), since I am transplanting them into the garden when they're big enough.

Speaking of my garden progress outside, this is SO hard, guys. I spent 4 hours yesterday, digging up a new patch and ripping out all the grass and weeds growing there. Today, I have to finish that up, dig deeper, and mix in compost/better soil. I feel like I'm going to have a six pack when I'm done with all of this.

Aww, thanks, Marlin. I'm so glad this forum exists-- no one else around here seems to think gardening is the new "cool" hobby, ha ha! As for labeling, I have a little chart drawn on a sheet of paper, with everything written on there- you can't really see, but each row is marked with "A, B, C, etc.", so I just had to redraw that on a sheet of paper and mark which row has what. :3

[Aida]

I now(since a few days ago) have a light system set up above the babies, and they have tinfoil around them to reflect the light back- I can really tell the difference. They are growing super fast, and three more have grown leaves from the second half of the tray, so I guess they were just late bloomers... literarly.


As for my patch outside, I don't have a six pack, but I did(finally) finish and planted those sunflowers and radishes. I believe some are already sprouting, too!

Now, how often should I water the outside ones? I'm kind of "eyeballing" it right now, and watering once a day if it's hot outside, or skipping a day if it wasn't that sunny, etc. (I water with a hose)

[Jardin du Fort]

OK, so I'm thinking, if Aida is just now planting in the garden in Florida, it will likely be, um, well that's a difference of four zones, at a month and a half a zone, um, times a weather irregularity vector of 10%, minus the global warming factor at 5 1/2%, um, well, it looks like I'll be able to plant my garden here in northern Indiana about July 27!

Really now, Aida, you're doing a great job!

And don't worry about not getting that 6-pack. You'll firm up well enough if you just keep at the garden chores!