my poor seedlings
 

moved them outside and into a shaded area( mostly cloudy anyway) with temps in the low 60s during the day and high 40s at night. Put them out an hour or so first day, more the second, moving them to my covered deck with a couple of grow lights for warmth at night. Thursday afternoon, moved them out again planning to bring them back in after a couple of hours. Unfortunately, came down with a severe stomach bug or food poisoning and accidently left them out in the open overnight with temps in the low 40s and pretty windy. It wasnt until Friday afternoon that I recovered enough to think about them again. They dont look as good as they did, but are still alive. I hope I didnt waste all of my time and effort with my untimely mistake. I feel terrible but nothing I can do about it now. ( sigh )

[img]http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e374/duajones/seedlings1-1.jpg[/img]

We all make mistakes! My thought would be to really watch them and take care of them, but dont over baby them. (Easier said than done?) Many plants and seedlings have overcome a bit of hardship like this, so I dont think all the hard work (time and effort) were wasted. More than likely most of them (if not all) will be fine. However if they do not perk back up, you had a learning experience, that will prevent you from doing it again :)
The do look a bit on the leggy side though, how far away from your plants did/do you have your lighting?

Maybe there's something I'm not seeing in your pic, because the plants there don't look all that beat-up to me, and for sure they don't look like they are at death's door. A little leggy as already noted, but otherwise fine.

I think they'll do fine, but just give them shade for a while, no sun until they toughen up to the wind. :wink:

they actually look better in the pic than in person for sure. the plants became leggy early on before i improved my lighting situation and stayed that way even though I had the lights close for the past few weeks. I probably overacted and I sure hope thats the case. thanks for your replies

The only damage done is that they have been physiologically stressed by the low temps. They will make it and will recover. The thing they need now is to continue to acclimate to the outdoors and not go back below 45 degrees for a while.

Smaller seedlings would have more difficulty. Since yours are large to begin with, they should shrug this off pretty fast.

Fusion

Update
 

they have been outside all week, mostly in shade with a touch of filtered sun, and I bring them onto my covered patio at night. I gave them some diluted fish emulsion (in soil not foliar) and they look pretty darn good. No branches falling off and they have good color. They really need to go in the ground now but mother nature is making me wait.

Really surprised you are exposing your seedlings to such cool temps. Tomato plants should really not be out in 40's even for a short period of time as they get stunted and developmentally set back. I guess you didn't have room to keep them indoors any longer?

Temperature hasnt been a problem this past week until last night and even then the low was in the high 40s. We had temps in the high 60s to low 70s during the day and lows in the mid 50s for most of the week before yesterday. My deck is pretty protected so I didnt think I would have a problem. Hopefully it wasnt a mistake

Don't fret! I've had worse looking seedlings that recovered just fine from some abuse!

They're tougher than they look :)

You'll see. Just baby them along for awhile and they should grow out of any problems.

Hope you're feeling better too!

Jennifer

they look pretty good but need to go in the ground badly. Just when I thought the cool weather might be over, we have low 40s and mid 30s forecast later in the week. I am so anxious to get them planted.

Absolute earliest, unless you can protect from frost, is Feb 21st. I am probably going to end up waiting until March 1st because of how goshdarnoodley cold it's been. It has not been this cold in Houston for this many days in 1 season in the 10 years I've been here.

We didnt actually have a freeze this year but its been colder longer than I can remember in many years. I actually brought the plants back inside last night as the temps dropped into the low 40s, staying in the 40s the next 2 days and dropping into the mid 30s or worse the next 2 nights. I am wondering now what effect this will have on my plants and will I need to harden them off all over again. ( they had 3 to 4 hours of sun yesterday) Plus they wont fit under my light setup anymore.

I would just put em near a window if you can. They might get a little leggy but that's better than frozen.

They are predicting freezes tonight, AND tomorrow, and get this. Weather Underground is predicting 27 degrees in North Houston Friday morning. That is just unbelievable to me. This is the first real "Winter" I remember in the 10 years I've been here. :(

We had 6 inches of snow on christmas day 2005 but this is still more of a "real" winter than we have had in some time. 38 when I got up this am. I guess I am just spoiled weather wise down here in south texas.

Duane & Feldon,

Thanks for the reminder. Right now it's 42 in the shade here off Loop 610 and the sky is clear and there's little wind. My tray of 15 plants that were seeded 1/9 just got pulled out from under my lights and stuck on the flat roof of my garage in full warm sun. The younger plants are now basking in a south facing window. I'm planning plant out for 2/24 for my friend on the coast, 3/15 for my Galleria area patio, and 4/1 for my friend in College Station. I started three groups of plants at one week intervals partly because of the unpredictability of TX weather and partly because I understood the plants were going to different locations. I am running out of space under lights too.

Ken