are spindly seedlings viable?

13 years ago

Now that this forum has helped me correct my lighting problem (THANKS) with stronger lights close to the plants, I have another question. Assuming that I do things relatively correctly from here on, will my long spindly seedlings grow normally into viable healthy plants? I'm concerned about potting them up deep to get most of the stem under soil, and then having the root end near the bottom of the pot. Since this is over half the vegetables I'm planting this season, would it be safer to simply start over with new sprouts?

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Comments (4)

keriann_lakegeneva
13 years ago
You can plant them deep, the roots will figure it out. You just cant plant multi-stemmed plants deep like lettuce.

When I transplant my tomatoes, their root system gets planted in the bottom 1/3 of the cup and they are fuine and happy.

What are you growing?.. srping is so close now : )

Keriann~
noinwi
13 years ago
Tomatoes and peppers can be planted deeper and roots will form on the buried stem. I'm not sure about other veggies.
mandolls
13 years ago
If you have more seed I would recommend starting new ones, especially if the seedlings are over two weeks old. I had the same thing happen to me two years ago. (educated myself after the fact) The seedlings that I started under the lights were much stronger and healthier by planting time, even though they were three weeks younger.
connecticutbug
13 years ago
Last year we started some tomato seedlings near a window in a plastic tray and they ended up getting a bit leggy since the light wasn't strong enough. I was worried about them but planted more than half of my garden with them. They took an extra week or two to catch up to the other plants but once they did, they actually produced better than others.

I wouldn't trust my entire garden to leggy plants, but if some are they should catch up.

I almost didn't use them but my father (Why has many years of garden experience) said they would be fine, and they were.