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Seedling Update

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

Some of you on the list for a while may remember my struggling and
suffering last fall trying to start fall crops from seed indoors. 

First I had damping off disease for some things (and chamomile tea didn't
help all that much), and then extreme legginess, and -- heck, I don't even
remember all the problems I had. What I didn't have was a fall garden. :-(
  Even tho I got some good advice from the list which I appreciated.
Basically, the whole endeavor was a flop. Very disheartening.

A few weeks ago I I started broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, and cabbage.
I'm pleased and proud to report that they are currently outside hardening
off, and I'll transplant them in a few days. They're still leggier than I'd
like, but they are SO much better than last fall's attempt that I'm not
complaining.

The things that helped most were using a soil-less seed starting medium and
doubling up the lights and adding reflective material wherever I could. I
couldn't get the plants any closer than TOUCHING the bulbs, so there was no
improvement possible in that area. And still they're leggy. A few times I
even kept the lights on 24 hours, tho that's not good for plants since they
need a period of darkness too. I finally really began to suspect that these
lights just weren't right somehow, even tho new.

Today, as an experiment and in preparation for the tomato and pepper
seedlings I hope to have soon, I changed the lightbulbs in the fluorescent
fixtures. What I had were bulbs sold for plants and aquariums. I couldn't
find *warm* bulbs which is what I've repeatedly seen recommended to go
along with the cool bulb so what I put in were one "regular" fluorescent
and one "cool" fluorescent in each of the two fixtures.

WOW. I can't believe the difference in the AMOUNT of light compared with
the other bulbs. With those reflective surfaces in there, it's like a
tanning booth or something! I'll bet I'm not going to have leggy tomato
seedlings.

Patricia
Zone 7b, West Georgia
Who is very proud of her leggy little seedlings and literally dazzled by
her new seed starting setup


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