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| Hi,
This is the first time I'm growing these from seed so I'm a little confused. I've started thinning out the plants from the clumps they came up in, but the stems are long and floppy. You can see that I'm trying to keep them propped up. All sprouted while outside so receive sunlight. Are the plants supposed to look like this? When I've previously purchased chard plants, the leaves and stalks arise from ground level. So my other question is, can I plant my seedlings deeper when transplanting? Thanks,
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Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by yiorges-z5il (My Page) on Mon, Oct 12, 09 at 11:45
| mayplant deeper but be sure to plant in area with good sun light. |
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| Chard also likes cool temps, so the stretch may be due to that, or too much fertilizer in the potting soil to start with. |
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- Posted by rain2fall 8/Oregon (rain2fall@comcast.net) on Mon, Oct 12, 09 at 23:37
| Are you going to plant these outside? Rain2Fall |
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| These will be planted out in the garden after I transfer them to individual pots for a bit. Right now they are in a seed starting mix outside on the deck, but are not getting much sun due to constant rain the past week! So higher temps could also cause the legginess? They did sprout while it was pretty warm... Thanks for the help! |
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| When you transfer them to individual pots, try planting them deeply, up to their first set of leaves. They'll probably be ok. Consider investing in a grow light. That way you won't have to trust the weather. I used to start seedlings using natural light, but I had the same problem you did. If they happened to come up during a bit of cloudy weather they'd get leggy. It's nice to have a grow light for a backup at least. They're not very expensive either. Warm temps can do that too, or can at least make the legginess worse, but that seems more out of our control than light (unless, I guess, you can put your growlight setup in your air-conditioned house). I have my growlight seed-starting setup in the garage, so there's not much I can do about temperature control, but since most of my seedlings are in there in the fall and winter, it's not that much of a problem. |
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- Posted by rain2fall 8/Oregon (rain2fall@comcast.net) on Thu, Oct 15, 09 at 1:26
| I was wondering about the season. I start swiss chard directly in the garden in the spring. They are easy. We'[re both in zone 8, but you're going to plant these outdoors in October? Rain2Fall |
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