Growing things from seeds

Q: I have a problem growing vegetable seeds. I use good soil in trays, and I follow directions. The problem is the stems grow as though they are vines. Before there is even a leaf, the stem grows to be at least 6 inches long. The plants just flop over.

Eventually, I plant the tomatoes because they can grow roots from the stems, but I have to tie the other plants to stakes to get them to stand up. They grow slowly, but by the end of summer, most of them have produced some fruit. What am I doing wrong?

A: Your seedlings are stretching to reach the light. If your vegetable seeds were breaking through the garden soil outside, they would see bright sunlight. Indoors in your trays, the seeds are not seeing enough light, and they are growing long stems in an attempt to find more light.

A bright windowsill does not provide enough light for many plants, and neither do lamps that are not close enough to the planting tray. You will need to get the lights closer to the soil and then slowly raise the lights as the plants grow.

The problem you must watch out for is heat. Many vegetables like warmth, but outdoors they get a breeze and cool soil to moderate the sun’s heat. Indoors they just get dried out and too hot.

For a long time, we have used fluorescent lights, but now many gardeners are switching to LED fixtures.

One of the reasons many people try planting vegetable seeds is to get more plants for a lower cost than buying plants in pots from the garden center.

Spending money on lighting fixtures messes with the budget, but if you get fixtures that can be used around the house during the rest of the year, you save a little bit. LED lights also don’t cost very much to run, so that will help keep the cost down.

Use LED bulbs that say on the package that they emit light similar in color to sunlight.