"leggie" tomatos & peppers

I was wondering if someone out there had the answer to this. I started my tomato & pepper plants indoors about a month ago. They are getting long and thin plants on them, and I hear thats not a good thing. I'm a little new at this, and I was hoping someone out there has a fix for me. Any Ideas? Thanks in advance.

Paul,

Legginess usually means your light source is too far from the plants.

Assuming you are using grow lights or flourescent bulbs, they should be no more than two or three inches above the plants.

Best fix for the tomatoes is to repot them. Bring the new potting mix right up to the first leaves, burying the stem. New roots will grow from the stem. This provides to benefits: a strong root ball, and solving your legginess problem.

Thanks for the advise. I'll just re-pot them. I'm not using any light source other than the sun though. maybe thats the problem?

That could be a problem more than one way.

Usually, the amount of light coming through windows is _not_ enough to produce strong, healthy plants. As you found they get leggy, and spindly trying to reach for the sunlight.

I broke down and built a lightstand this year, and you wouldn't believe the difference in the plants. I could transplant tomorrow if the outside conditions were right. Stong stems, lots of foliage, tall without being leggy. It really made a big difference.

Based on past performance, I planted seeds the first week in March. My typical seedlings are about 7 inches tall, with three to four sets of true leaves. With this new system, I could have waited another two weeks, or even three, because I won't transplant until May.

paul i would have to agree with everyone else we built new light stands also this year and you can't beleave the diference we only use one shop light on 4 flats will use two lights over each shelf next year
dave

Well, it's probably too late now. looks like i have a project for this winter. Thanks for all of the help. One more quick one. Since peppers and tomatos are related, I'm assuming I can bury their stems also and they'll root?

there are 2 more reasons that could cause legginess.

Too Hot
Too much fertlizer..

Peppers are slightly different than tomatoes, They do not
reroot along the stem well enough to bury..

Byron

I have a whole room devoted to seedlings with grow lights. I use 1x1ft. cement blocks placed the length of the shop light (4 ft.) apart. I cut boards (scrap from Home Depot) about 4 ft 3 in. so they lap onto the block. I then screw in hooks and hang the lights. You can also adjust the height by adding some kind of spacer (bricks, etc. anything stable). I have 8 ft of lights stacked 4 tiers high on each side of a room. I can start LOTS of seedlings this way. Also I put one hot and one cool fluorescent tube in each light. When they get their second leaves I rotate them out into the cold frame. I started using grow lights a few years ago and boy what a difference in the quality of the plant...just doesn't compare to a sunny window. Also this system is totally portable ...after a few months the lights and boards go into storage and I have my home back! I may sound like a fanatic, but I grow cut flowers commercially. I got this idea from Lynn Byzinski's (sp???) book on growing flowers for market.

Here's a link to free instructions for building a PVC light stand.

http://www.carlnet.org/~ttsdaly/plantstand.html#BLANK

I found these instructions after I "engineered" mine, but pretty much the same idea, although mine only holds 8 flats of plants (4 flats per shelf.) For added stability I used PVC cement to secure all the horizontal pieces together, but the legs are not cemented in. That way I can disassemble it and store it as soon as I'm done with it (pretty soon, I hope!)

Paul... Just wanted to add my 2 cents' worth, in consensus... For several years I grew tomato seedlings just in the windowsill, as you have, with the same leggy results. This year, I FINALLY brought up a 4' shop light from the basement, and added aquarium bulbs, putting it on the underside of a shelf 2-3" above my seed trays. I am astounded at the difference in my tomato seedlings! Since the shelf brackets are on just the common metal standards with slots every inch or so, I can move the shelving as the seedlings grow. I do not have the lights on a timer, and if I forget to turn them on when I make coffee, the plants turn toward the sunny window almost immediately (and could get leggy if I left off the lights), so I guess a timer is in my future. Good Luck! -darius