Subject: Re: SEED PROBLEMS

From: "t.r." <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Mar 1995 13:48:07 GMT

[email-masked] (Dina Williams) wrote:

> My question is: will this be OK? Will I get anything worth planting? Or
> should I just bite the bullet and invest in a light and warming mat?
> 
> Any help you can provide would be great! Thanks.
> 
> Dina

I'm a rookie seed-starter TOO but there's one bit of advice
I KNOW might help ... as I understand it, you do not
need to spend buckets on "special" lights. Simple fluorescents
will do. We spent $8 on a hanging, plug-in , 4-foot-long "shop
light" fixture & $1.50 more on the two bulbs it needs ... it's hanging 
right over the wide east-facing windowsill where I'm starting a
few hundred herb & flower seeds (one month along &
so far so good) ...  The advice for this setup came from about
a dozen allegedly experienced gardeners. (PS No warming
mat either ... but the room is heated part of the day & is probably 
fairly consistently around 60 degrees).

good luck!  t.r.

---

From: [email-masked] (Dina Williams)
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 95 19:59:43 GMT

I've been reading this newsgroup for a few weeks now and am impressed with
the knowledge everyone seems to have. I hope someone can offer me some advice.

I am a first-time gardener and am having problems with my seeds.  I planted
a bunch of cabbage and broccoli indoors a month or so ago and the sprouts
grew very tall, with only two leaves, and eventually flopped over.  At that
point my 18-pound cat jumped onto the table (over a fence, I might add) and
decimated the crop.  I wasn't too distraught, as the sprouts had gotten
rather leggy.  So I replanted.

Some of my new sprouts are also getting leggy. I realize that the legginess
was probably the result of too little light and also maybe too much heat. I
don't have a heat mat, but they were very close to a radiator for most of
the day. I can't afford a special light, and the plants were in a
North-facing window. So I've moved them to an unheated, enclosed porch that
gets pretty warm during the day and lots more light. (I live in upstate New
York -- don't know which zone I'm in off the top of my head. The last couple
of days have been in the high 40s, and my porch seems to get warmer than
that. The plants are in the sunniest spot on the porch.) I bring them inside
in the late afternoon as it's still dipping down into the 30s at night. 
They are still close to the radiator at night, but we keep our thermostat in
the low to mid 60s when we go to bed.

Dina