Gardening Journal

[tesla]

Over half of our seeds have sprouted!  At this point I'm waiting on borage, chives, oregano, rosemary, sage, sunberries, all of the peppers, and the catnip (upstairs).

And oh, how they've begun!  When I left for work yesterday the cucumbers were barely beginning to peek out of the soil; when I got home they were 2 inches tall with 3/4" leaves.  Apparently they like this year's setup.

I have tweaked the setup a bit: they're about 20" from the light hood, and they're getting 12 hours of light.  I still have the trays covered night and day.  At night I turn on an oscillating fan in the other corner of the room (putting in on during the daytime makes things dry out too quickly).

Comments

[ktig.livejournal.com]

How the heck did you get them to sprout so fast? I'm very impressed.


Time to go thaw out some soil.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that it's due to keeping them warm. All of my trays have either warming mats (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Doutdoor&field-keywords=heat+mat&x=0&y=0) or a concealed incandescent bulb to generate heat.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

20 inches?! Um, what we teach, and what all of the references I've seen say, is to have the lights just barely above the plants, 1-2 inches at the most. Otherwise the seedlings get leggy, growing lo-o-o-ng stems that will be weak because they're reaching for the light. What you want are short, stocky seedlings with thick, sturdy stems. I realize this is a special set up, but I'm dubious.

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

I'm somewhat afraid of burning them with the HPS lamp. I guess I'll check with the folks at Interior Gardens and see what they say; they specialize in growing/sprouting under this type of light.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. I'm used to using fluorescent bulbs, where the seedlings can (and do!) press right up against them with no problems.