Topic: What do you do with your leggy/runty plants

[emma h]

Hi
This is my first year, and I'm having a lot of fun. My first broad beans were very leggy (I left them on a heated mat thinking this would be good..I've now learned it isn't ;D)

I now have attempt 2 which are small and bushy rather than tall, but what do I do with my leggy ones? and any other thinnings/2nd class plants? do you just throw them on the compost heap or do you plant them up anyway? It seems a skame to dump them after all that nurturing

Emma

[sandersj89]

I tend to compost my weak plants prefer to grow on the better specimens. For this reason I always over sow.

Jerry

[Sprout]

I 'recycle' some of them (the healthly looking ones) by planting them deeper in a bigger pot. Seems a shame to waste them somehow.

[Trixiebelle]

I can never bear to throw them away. I've currently got a dozen leggy sunflowers in the kitchen propped up with lolly sticks.

THEY HAVE FEELINGS YOU KNOW  ;D

[Dan 2]

Try pinching out the top of the leggy seedlings for things like peas and beans and they will grow more bushier with sideshoots. Hope this helps, Dan :-)

[supersprout]

glad you're enjoying this emma h ;) :D
Jerry's approach may sound ruthless, but apparently your yield from plants in the prime of condition is '00s more than from runty leggy ones. I wish I could be as tough, it's very hard not to get sentimental. Maybe compromise - I cut leggy plants above the first true leaves, and they will sprout from the joints and make a more bushy plant. Even so, if the weather's not with us, into the compost they go ::)