seedlings,already giving trouble

[Vanisle_BC]

tdump, I'm not sure about details of your setup but here's mine: Plant trays are on a 4' wide table (used to be a home-made darkroom sink ). Over it, hanging on a rope & pulley arrangement, are 2 double-tube fluorescent fixtures fastened together side by side with wooden cross-battens. So the whole lighting thing is about 4x4 feet. For attending to the plants I can raise the lights high and secure the rope. For adjusting their distance beneath the lowered lights I just prop the trays on bits of wood or whatever is handy; or I can use the rope to tie the lights at various heights. The whole thing is quite hokey and very low-tech. I'll try to do some pictures tomorrow, and post them here.

Right now I have seedlings of leek, onion & parsley under the lights but the past couple of days I've had them out for a few hours in the daylight (not sun), starting to harden them off. Temperature has been around 7-8 degrees (C. !!)

[tdump]

well i put the onion seedlings in the cold frame along with the black seed lettuce. Then I put the cilantra and parsley stuff in a flat under a led bulb i got from ebay. a 2 watt 1 with red and blue led's . I aint so sure that thing is worth the manure it would take to bury it in the yard!
Anyhow, here is the way it looks now. The sweet taters, they had started putting out, but I put them under the light this morning, and Wow, they have jumped just during today.

[Vanisle_BC]

I promised to post some pictures of my lighting setup for raising seedlings indoors. I'm a day late but here they are. I said earlier that I used two double-tube units battened together but that was originally; now I have a single 4-tube fixture.

(They uploaded in the reverse of the order I intended)

The white thing on top is an electronic timer. I used to use mechanical ones but they have plastic gears that soon wear out. The electronic one's more expensive and a bit of a puzzle to program but has been working well for a few years.

[tdump]

thanks for posting your setup. Gives me ideas for when I have a little better place figured out to set this stuff up as in the bedroom is a bit impractical although it is already 72 degrees and not heating a area just for plants.

, I may still be a inch or 2 to high with my lights but the maters seem happier as they are putting on more leaves in the middle today, tiny but barely visible.I think they call them True leaves?. they are going to make it I think!

[tdump]

Some of my maters are making their True leaves! I think you folks have helped me enough i will have some valid plants this year. I grew a few last year but they did not do well. So this year is already looking better.

I have 10 different tomatoes planted now and I think 8 peppers so far and 2 more types are ordered.
Amazing what just a short week or 2 can do.

[tdump]

Just thought I would update, seems the plants are happy!

[rainbowgardener]

Looking good!!!

[applestar]

Yep looks good!

At this point, what will help is to cut apart the blocks of cells (not into individual single cells but blocks or they will fall over) and group them so that the shorter seedlings can be placed on risers/higher and closer to the lights. See how the little ones are twice or even 3x as far from the lights as the taller ones?

I call this "Seedling Jenga"

[Peter1142]

Looking good congrats.

The ones in the pots on the left are leggy and struggling for light, looks like they would be better to go on the end there where you have water bottles.

[tdump]

Oh those bottles are selfwatering pots with plants in them. I can set that 1 flat up on a couple brick, that should help! Thanks for the hints.
Those leggy basil are just annoying, I have done everything but put them in a satellite and send them to the sun and they just aint doing well.

[Peter1142]

They want to be 2" from the light. The smaller seedlings benefit the most from being close to the lights.

[tdump]

Just a update, I have been putting them outside all day this week, 70's temps and sun.
My watermelons and such planted monday night are already coming up to.
Some of the tomatoes you can see I re-potted.
Squash are enjoying their view of the sun from inside my work shop window.
There is also 2 ornamental hot peppers I saved from last year in pots in the window,I think they are going to work out to be productive this year!

[tdump]

Well here is all the plants in the window. I have forgot how long they have been there. About 2 weeks I think. I finally got to feeling good enough to do some work and built a shelf for them and such.
Some tomatoes have had repotomies and are out growing those bigger pots.
Hope to get some put out in the garden in a couple weeks.

[rainbowgardener]

Wow! Get those tomatoes out in some sunshine. They are very leggy, long and thin and stretched, due to not enough light.

Even if you have to bring them back in at night for awhile, they will do much better with sun.