Re: seedling question
At 07:51 PM 5/11/02 -0400, Pat (writing from zone 5 in north-central Ohio,
said,
>I started some seedlings about three weeks ago and am concerned with their
>progress. The cucumbers appear to be doing well (have started growing real
>leaves) but the others, tomatoes and bell peppers, do not seem to be
>progressing (no real leaves yet, tall but thin). Should I expect them to
>still do well when transplanted to the garden next weekend? Thanks for
>helping a new and nervous gardener.
April 1 is probably a better time than mid-April for starting tomato
seedlings in order to have stocky transplants perhaps 6 inches tall to put
into the garden in mid-May in your zone, Pat. A simple setup for indoor
lighting using shop-lights (ordinary fluorescents from the hardware store)
will do fine. It's not too late to jack the light level up on your babies
by having those fluorescents perched an inch or two above their tops and
the lights turned on 18 hours a day. Lack of light is indeed the most
likely cause for the spindliness you reported above.
Cukes transplant fine, but they do like hot weather. Mid-Ohio still has
cold nights this time of year (I'm from zone 5 originally), so you'll
probably do better by putting the baby cukes under the lights, too, for at
least another week.
Peppers are much slower to germinate than tomatoes in my experience. So
they're prolly well behind your baby toms in development. And they'll love
the enhanced light conditions between now and outplanting time, too. Next
year, try starting your pepper seeds around March 15 and your toms April 1.
I would be leery of planting toms or peppers before Memorial Day in your
area. Even here in zone 7 land (I'm just outside Washington, DC), we had a
late frost one year recently where everybody's outplanted toms and peps
were killed around June 4! Luckily that phenomenon coincided with a huge
bout of procrastination on my part. My babies were hardening off on the
outside front porch when the frost forecast was released by the weather
people, and I whisked them indoors for the night.
--Janet
_______________________________________________
Sqft-l mailing list
Sqft-l@xena.pkiclue.com
http://xena.pkiclue.com/mailman/listinfo/sqft-l
