Topic: Leggy Seedlings

[boydzfish]

Planted some cauli seeds last weekend and they have fair grown in just a short time only problem is they have got more leggy that a dance troupe!! Have moved them from conservatory to cold frame to try to stunt their growth or they will be like the beanstalk in the famous panto!!! Any tips on avoiding this in future?  ::)

Also got a couple of rows of Early potatoes - Home Guard (Mr Manwaring) - put in the ground this weekend and as I sat having a cup of coffee it was like May rather than February. Boy is this weather screwed up or what? ???

[pumkinlover]

It happens so quick, even when you think it is light enough.
Plant deep when you transplant, they'll look loads better then!

[5rod]

hi 5 rod here
it happen to us all. just plant as deep as you can when you pot up.

[Coastie]

I suffered from this and bought a light box.  Almost as soon as they germinate and put up leaves and a stem I transfer them to it and so far this year they have all grown and thickened out quite well.

[SueK]

The other thing you can do when you sow seeds this time of year is (this is difficult to explain!  :)) arrange some foil so that light is reflected to the back of the seedlings if you don't have an additional source of light.  I'll be trying this when I sow my tomatoes/peppers/aubergines this week as last year they were *very* leggy, but at least with these plants you can bury the stems quite deeply when it's time to move them on.  Some things I'm not so sure about.

I've got a feeling that one of our Birmingham contingent, for want of a better expression, posted a photo of this sort of arrangement last year. 

[Digeroo]

I had this happened to me with some early sown calabrese last year.  In the end they flopped over since the weight of the first true leaves seemed too much for them. I was recommended a good high nitrogen feed which seemed to green them up and bring them on nicely.  Though I was still worried when I planted them out.  But once the plants were a couple of feet tall they had good strong stems and did not seem to notice there was an extra inch at the bottom.   Had a good fine crop of calabrese off them.  

[Chrispy]

I use tin foil tin foil stuck to some stiff card.

I use a bookend, just the plain square bracket type to hold the card/foil in place, so it can easily be removed for watering the plants.

Works very well, the only downside is it hides the plants from your view, I think I will have to put some pics on the other side of the card so it does not look so ugly.