6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
With the advice I got from people here I simply bought a shop light of 4' which had the bulbs for under $8 at Lowes. I put in 2 screw hooks from the floor joists above the basement and put the light on some chain. I connected the light to the chains with S hooks so I could move the lights up and down. I would say the total cost was about $12. I now have 18 healthy tomato plants, Aunt Molly's ground cherries and some pumpkins growing (a project with the granddaughter). I also have been taking all my plants outside for the past 3 weeks as soon as the temps are 45 degrees or better...of course I started slow to harden them off. I have been very lucky that the past week has been low's in 50's and highs in 70's so I have been leaving them outside with protection at night. They are now completely hardened off and doing amazing.
Hi Christie,
Hope you're following digdirt's advice. I couldn't say it better. If you're interested I'll go ahead and take measurements of my seed starting setup. It was rather cheap to make since I just used material that I had laying around. My tomatoes are about 18" and very full now. They're going in the ground this weekend. The peppers are over 8" and are going in a week after. The rest of my veggies are in now. The key is to give them lots of light. I've been leaving my lights on 24 hours and it's still not near as much as sunlight.
Good luck!
Rick
Depending on how big the area is that you've planted you might be able to try cutting the bottoms off some milk jugs and putting them over the seeds. If you leave the jug top off it won't get too hot, but it will be warmer than 62. I've read that pepper seeds (hots and bells) need soil temps of around 80 to germinate! Best of luck!!!
You are doing this for cold stratification or just to keep it cool? Stratification isn't required for rosemary seed but it does prefer darkness, 60 degree temps, and to be lightly covered. Even then the germination rate is very low.
I think you will find all the info in this previous discussion very, very helpful. Good luck with it.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Germinating Rosemary
also read something about if the ends of the tubes are capped in green, that they are ultra low mercury containing lights (which mine are)....is that true for all brand tubes?
No, just the green caps.
If the one you dropped is still working then it didn't break. Actually the tubes are pretty hard to break - even on purpose. The most common problem I run into is the end caps coming loose from the bulb.
Dave
ccaggiano, I can relate to how you feel! I started growing from seed this year. My brother in-law gave me a very nice (read expensive) grow lamp. I thought this was awesome--at first. After about a month and a half the bulb in the grow lamp burnt out, and I could not find a replacement at the local garden center. Oh, my poor seedlings...sitting in the dark for over a day! I had to purchase 4 shop lights from the hardware store to cover the same area that the big grow lamp covered--and I had to reconfigure the whole setup in the process. Then, to top it off, about a week later the outlet that I had my shop lights plugged into blew a fuse and I could not get it to start working again! (We live in a house built in 1826...the outlet needed to be replaced). I had to move all of my plants and re-hang all of the lights AGAIN. Fun times!
MacThayer, I can't believe the story about your neighbor!! How horrible.
Hi,
I did the same with my moonflower vine seedlings basically out of necessity - had 30 seeds sown in a container, 12 sprouted but no sign of the other 18. Anyway to save the ones that had sprouted, I dug them out gently with a plastic fork and transplanted into little (approx. 3" tall) peat pots and put the cover back on the container to see if the rest would sprout. Nothing so far - maybe they will just never sprout. The transplanted ones are doing just fine - truly monstrous seedlings. The one problem that I did have was with the seed coats. I think I didn't sow the seeds deeply enough so that when the seedlings emerged some still had bits of the seed coat stuck on. I waited a bit to see if they would be able to shake those off, but I think the humidity in the room was not high enough so the seed coats just kind of got dry & hard. I pried them off with some tweezers this morning and so far so good.
I think I will do this early transplantation business with the other guys I have coming out here and there in various flats.
Amna
Posted by digdirt 6 -7 AR (My Page) on Thu, Apr 17, 08 at 17:57
Hi Ornata - Is there a point or benefit to doing it? There is no benefit for the plant per se - it is living solely off itself at that stage except for water which the roots are absorbing - but it is necessary for those of us that grow bulk seedlings and use seedling trays to do so.
I routinely transplant hundreds of tomato seedlings out of a seedling tray at the cotyledon stage just to get them into their individual cells of growing medium. It is quite easy and fast to do. So, depends on what you are using to germinate in.
Plants germinated individually in cell packs or peat pellets or whatever can easily wait for true leaves to develop to be transplanted.
Does this help?
Dave
PS: If you do use the peat pellets, please do strip off the netting before transplanting. Your plant will benefit greatly from doing so. ;)
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Thank you Dave for you advice and thanks for the question. I had the same one waiting to be asked, Ornata.
hello once again,
Well, I'm not sure if I can buy into the air temp and soil temp. being that different in degrees....outside yes, but not so sure about indoors, with plants being in small cell packs or small pots. But, I am going to go home tonite and check it out...I've got plenty of thermometers for just that experiment:)
Also, Dave, if us northerners would start our okra in late June...we would probably not get much okra, if any. By the start of Sept. here our nites are already getting cool, and our past years okra is certainly starting to phase out...leaving a start date of late June not advisable.
As I said before...have grown it, have been sucessful with it....and my Louisiana partner says she never knew us northerners could pull it off!:)
Out of 16 broccoli starts, one survived and is flourishing. Not bad for a first attempt. hehe I've decided I'll start them and as soon as they break ground I'll plant them outside. We don't get enough light in the PNW in the winter to start seeds on the window sill and I don't have room for a light system.
Oh, and I used the method of burrying the stem like was suggested, thank you!
Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure!
It's a combination of factors. Some of it is variety and genetics. Some of it is the potting mix used. Different potting mixes give very different results thus you'll often see recommendations for either ProMix brands or Metro Mix brands which are pro growing mediums.
Some of it is the temps maintained in a greenhouse - 55-65 degrees. Cooler temps slow growth and makes for stockier plants. Some of it is the air circulation provided by massive exhaust fans.
But the biggest difference is that plants grown in a greenhouse get much more light - as much 3-4 times the light you can provide without a greenhouse - and that makes for a shorter stockier plant with shorter stem lengths between nodes but a better ratio of roots to nodes.
They are also grown in dark containers rather than clear plastic. Clear plastic exposes the roots to light and causes the roots to shift deeper into the dirt to get away from the light and heat. Leaves like light, roots don't. Darker colored containers are better.
And their roots are kept cooler and further in the dark by the black holding trays and the abundance of shade over the root ball by the massive crowding of their plants. Ever seen a 40' long table of tomato seedlings packed edge to edge? It looks like a mini-forest.
And greenhouse producers also tend to use foliar sprays for feeding rather than root drench, growth controlling hormones in some cases, and timed misting for watering or drip irrigation systems.
All in all a big difference from the environment you can create at home. Not that it makes their plants better, just mass produced. ;)
Dave
Great info!!! My plants were grown indoors, with a temp of about 70 degrees. I did have them under lights. I, quite painstakingly, made sure the lights were always 2 - 3" above the plants. I found this to be a pain in the you know what but I was good about this.
I didn't know about the roots liking dark but it makes sense now, considering their natural environment. Next year, I will make sure to get dark containers.
Thanks for the info!!!
I've heard of this happening to brugmansia seedlings, and from what I read about them, some survive and sprout true leaves, while some don't (to be the bearer of bad news, ~70%) I would say start a new batch, but don't toss these just yet, as long as the stems are green, you never know, they may sprout new leaves.
Origami_master: I'm so glad I read your post. I sowed some Brug seeds for the first time, and one germinated a few weeks ago with really pale, sickly-looking cotyledons. They've since died off but there do seem to be seed-leaves growing.