Why are my seedlings so small?!

At first, I guessed it was likely a lack of light and heat, but then I saw the picture and read about your temperatures. Then, I thought it was a soil issue (maybe the pH is off). Then I realized that with those high temperatures and a fan going, the problem could be that it's not humid enough. Heat and fans together make things dry out extra fast. Humidity can help speed growth. However, dryness is great for keeping diseases at bay. How powerful is your fan?

If it's not a big use of time and money, I would try a soil test, and maybe reduce your ventilation and/or temperatures (looks like you reduced the temperature some). I would recommend closer lights, as others have said, too.

I have a box fan going in my room most of the time. The tree in my room dries out pretty fast (the soil dries out and the leaves get drier, too), and grows more slowly with it on. I should move it to another room.

[Father'sDaughter]

Looks like you fixed whatever the problems were!

[ARgardener]

Originally Posted by Father'sDaughter

Looks like you fixed whatever the problems were!

Hope so! I've got my fingers crossed that they'll size up enough in the next few weeks to be able to be transplanted out.

That begs the question- how big do tomatoes have to be to be sat out?? I know a lot of people think bigger is better, but I've heard some wise gardeners say pencil size is about idea (?)

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by ARgardener

Hope so! I've got my fingers crossed that they'll size up enough in the next few weeks to be able to be transplanted out.

That begs the question- how big do tomatoes have to be to be sat out?? I know a lot of people think bigger is better, but I've heard some wise gardeners say pencil size is about idea (?)

6-12" tall, about pencil thickness or thicker of the stem would be perfect.

[ARgardener]

Alright, here things are as of yesterday. What do y'all think??

[Jimbotomateo]

Originally Posted by ARgardener

Alright, here things are as of yesterday. What do y'all think??

Nice! Now let's get em in the ground.. Jimbo

[ARgardener]

Originally Posted by Jimbotomateo

Nice! Now let's get em in the ground.. Jimbo

Thought they were a little small for that?? The weather is fine. What do the rest of you say?

[dmforcier]

Looks good to me. I'd plant the ones that already have leaf clusters. Others (L side of photo) still seem to be on their 1st and 2nd set of leaves? That's pretty immature still.


It looks like the plants on one end of the flat are much taller than the other. Is that an illusion or different varieties or is something going on with your rig?

[oakley]

Looks like peppers on the left or eggplant?

They look good. Maybe a week or 10 days behind most starts but that may have been
a combination of heavy soil, and possibly deeply seeded. (planting depth, deeper than
very shallow, can slow growth by a week). Some plant deep on purpose thinking it
helps root growth. I seed shallow.

I've never planted out in the garden seedlings that small. Not even hardened off.

[ARgardener]

Originally Posted by dmforcier

Looks good to me. I'd plant the ones that already have leaf clusters. Others (L side of photo) still seem to be on their 1st and 2nd set of leaves? That's pretty immature still.


It looks like the plants on one end of the flat are much taller than the other. Is that an illusion or different varieties or is something going on with your rig?

The plants on the left are peppers. Some tomatoes towards the middle are smaller... They're Indian Stripe and have been smaller than the others most of the time. The growth patterns of the different varieties has been prevalent.

[ARgardener]

Originally Posted by oakley

Looks like peppers on the left or eggplant?

They look good. Maybe a week or 10 days behind most starts but that may have been
a combination of heavy soil, and possibly deeply seeded. (planting depth, deeper than
very shallow, can slow growth by a week). Some plant deep on purpose thinking it
helps root growth. I seed shallow.

I've never planted out in the garden seedlings that small. Not even hardened off.

So you'd say wait a week or two more??

[dmforcier]

Have you hardened them off?

[ARgardener]

Originally Posted by dmforcier

Have you hardened them off?

Nope. I planned on starting next week.

[Father'sDaughter]

Personally, I would only put them out while that small if I knew the weather was going to be absolutely perfect for at least the next two weeks. That's after a proper hardening off, of course.

Edit: This post makes it look like I'm promoting transplanting right away more than I mean to have done; so, read my next post, too.

If the weather's fine, I would personally transplant them unless you're container gardening (particularly with friable soil) or worried about susceptibility to pests/diseases, or if you think they'd get dirt on the growth tips from watering and rain (which may stunt the plants). In my area, for tomatoes (not peppers), it seems like the major purpose of starting them in a controlled environment is to get them to germinate quickly while it's still too cold for tomatoes to germinate. Any growth they do outside helps a lot more than growth inside or in my greenhouse.

Small plants in large containers can pose some problems, sometimes. Otherwise, I tend to think the time of year matters more than the plant size. How friable your soil is may make a difference even for transplanting in the ground. Our garden soil isn't very friable—so plants tend to stay put when watered, whatever their size (frability is normally a good thing, though, I think; it's one reason people till). A mist nozzel on a hose may help for watering with smaller plants in friable soils, since it shouldn't disturb the soil, as long as it drains without pooling—but it'll get your plants wet, for sure, which you may not want.

Peppers, when small, seem take a lot longer to grow when transplanted, though. So, I like them to be bigger than tiny when transplanted. Maturity before the transplant does make a difference in plant maturity after the transplant, but plants tend to re-mature to a certain degree after transplanting anyway. Indoor maturity is more important for some varieties than others, I've found. For instance, plants that take a long time to flower are benefited by maturing before the transplant more than those that flower quickly, but if they just take a long time to ripen after setting fruit, how much they mature indoors shouldn't make a big difference in earliness—but you don't need to worry about these things here if the weather is already good; they'll mature in the ground without having to re-mature later, I mean (so you don't need to mature them indoors).

Anyway, these last mentions are partially my thoughts from my experiments (mostly done in 2015 when I grew about thirty tomato varieties indoors super early (like in February or before, under grow lights; yes, they got enormously long, and I planted some about 5' deep, experimentally, because of this; I didn't notice a big difference between deep plantings and regular plantings, except that younger tomatoes planted more shallowly seemed to grow faster initially, perhaps because they had warmer roots all around; the deep tomatoes did seem to be robust in the late season, however; peppers didn't seem to benefit root-wise from deep plantings).