When to pot up?

[kforbs126]

So all my seedlings have sprouted and they are on day #8 since being planted into jiffy pellets. When do I pot up to a 3" pot? All the tomato seedlings are about 1 1/2 to 2 inches and the peppers are about 1 to 1 1/2 inches.

I have pics on my blog: http://forbsfreeman.blogspot.com/

[RebelRidin]

I wait until they have their first true leaves. I beleieve some wait for two pair.

[Durgan]

Originally Posted by kforbs126

So all my seedlings have sprouted and they are on day #8 since being planted into jiffy pellets. When do I pot up to a 3" pot? All the tomato seedlings are about 1 1/2 to 2 inches and the peppers are about 1 to 1 1/2 inches.

I have pics on my blog: http://forbsfreeman.blogspot.com/

From the appearance of your tomato seedlings, I would throw them out and start over.

Here is mine for comparison. I have finished potting up but didn't take pictures yet.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ENRPD 5 March 2013 Potting Up Tomatoes
As the tomatoes reach an appropriate size they are moved to a larger pot. Pictures depict the potting up process.Six plants were moved up today.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ACHAC 26 February 2013 Tomato Growth (47 days)
This is the growth to date. It has been exceptionally cold at night but my plants are thriving. There are more plants than the 30 or so that I need, which will be given to neighbours, when I pot up in about a month.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?NLDPS 5 February 2013 Tomato seeds.
Starting tomatoes for the 2013 season 9 January 2013. Selection is: Black Russian, Tomato Blue P20, Belaris Orange, Dora, Black Krim, An orange type name unknown. Some seeds were sent to me last year and were grown too late in the season to get a good crop, so are being grown this year. There is a total of around 30 plants, five of each type. The Seeds were started on damp kleenex to verify germination. Then were planted in separate containers. The containers are on a heating pad and will be utilized as required on very cool nights. Artificial lights are never used. Light is any convenient place until the plants can be placed in the small greenhouse, when it gets warm enough.

[kforbs126]

Originally Posted by Durgan

From the appearance of your tomato seedlings, I would throw them out and start over.

Here is mine for comparison. I have finished potting up but didn't take pictures yet.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ENRPD 5 March 2013 Potting Up Tomatoes
As the tomatoes reach an appropriate size they are moved to a larger pot. Pictures depict the potting up process.Six plants were moved up today.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ACHAC 26 February 2013 Tomato Growth (47 days)
This is the growth to date. It has been exceptionally cold at night but my plants are thriving. There are more plants than the 30 or so that I need, which will be given to neighbours, when I pot up in about a month.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?NLDPS 5 February 2013 Tomato seeds.
Starting tomatoes for the 2013 season 9 January 2013. Selection is: Black Russian, Tomato Blue P20, Belaris Orange, Dora, Black Krim, An orange type name unknown. Some seeds were sent to me last year and were grown too late in the season to get a good crop, so are being grown this year. There is a total of around 30 plants, five of each type. The Seeds were started on damp kleenex to verify germination. Then were planted in separate containers. The containers are on a heating pad and will be utilized as required on very cool nights. Artificial lights are never used. Light is any convenient place until the plants can be placed in the small greenhouse, when it gets warm enough.

Why would I throw them out? I don't see anything wrong with them.

[rxkeith]

your seedlings look pretty leggy for being 8 days old. that may be why durgan said to throw them out. you need to keep the lights just above them to reduce legginess, and if its too warm in addition, that will get them growing too fast.

i don't think you need to throw them out, but you will need to take care in handling them. the long stems will make them easier to break.
if you want to salvage them, put them in a cooler place 55-65 degrees, with the light just above their heads. lightly brush them with your hand to toughen up their stems. do not fertilize them. once secondary leaves start to develop separate them, and bury as much of the stem as you can when you transplant. i had peppers one year that looked worse than your plants. i had planted seeds, and left them on our bedroom radiator. we had to go out of town for several days, and i thought they would just be sprouting by the time we got back, but they were way past that. i planted them deep, and they did fine. i have a short growing season, so starting all over again wasn't favorable.


keith

[kforbs126]

Originally Posted by rxkeith

your seedlings look pretty leggy for being 8 days old. that may be why durgan said to throw them out. you need to keep the lights just above them to reduce legginess, and if its too warm in addition, that will get them growing too fast.

i don't think you need to throw them out, but you will need to take care in handling them. the long stems will make them easier to break.
if you want to salvage them, put them in a cooler place 55-65 degrees, with the light just above their heads. lightly brush them with your hand to toughen up their stems. do not fertilize them. once secondary leaves start to develop separate them, and bury as much of the stem as you can when you transplant. i had peppers one year that looked worse than your plants. i had planted seeds, and left them on our bedroom radiator. we had to go out of town for several days, and i thought they would just be sprouting by the time we got back, but they were way past that. i planted them deep, and they did fine. i have a short growing season, so starting all over again wasn't favorable.


keith

Thank you keith. I did have them on the heating pad until yesterday when I got home from work. So they were on it for 7 days probably too long and why they are so leggy. I do have them about an inch and half below the light right now. I'm not gonna throw them away. Once I repot I will plant them deep. My house isn't very warm. I'm in San Diego and we have been about 55 to 60's for highs and my house stays pretty cool. Also they seem pretty springy as I was touching them. Not sure if that's good or not.

Also how often do these need watered? They are still pretty damp in the jiffy starter pellets. I'm just worried cause my cousin will be watering them for me this coming week. I'm not sure if/when they'll need watered.

[Ms. Jitomate]

Kforbs126, you are in sunny California, not Canada, you can save them. Follow the advice of Rxkeith. I transplanted mine when the true leaves were out, but watch Nctomatoman's video in the sticky thread for dense planting to know how to handle them, especially his March 17 tranplanting section. Good Luck!

[Redbaron]

No need to throw them out. Legginess is easily fixed in young tomato seedlings. They may not be perfect but they will be fine. Probably won't even notice the difference 2 weeks after repotting. The main issue with legginess is they are more likely to be susceptible to damping off or other similar problems.

So while Durgan is correct, they could be better. As long as you correct why they got leggy to begin with, you'll be ok. Legginess is caused by an imbalance between heat and light. So either add light or lower heat or both. You can also put them outside to get some sun wind and fresh air on warm days just for a little while to strengthen the stems up. Not too much or you will kill them. Just a little, sometimes even only 30 minutes or less, on days the weather is not too harsh.

I think throwing them out was a pretty harsh suggestion- it deflated the grower's pride in his seedlings- I agree the heat left too long was likely the cause, but they do look healthy- just in need of some TLC and deep potting up.

[KarenO]

I agree they can be salvaged. by giving them good light from now on and then proper deep transplanting. I find a common misconception is that folks wait until all the seeds germinate to place them under lights. The opposite is the case as experienced seed starters would know. We watch them like the mother/father hens we are and when the very first one pokes up, the lid comes off, the whole tray goes under lights 2" away for 16 hours a day and the rest germinate under the lights. heat is for germination only and gets shut off as soon as most are through the soil as I find it contributes to weak rapid growth and fungus problems.
I learned what I know from making mistakes as we all did. this one is not unrecoverable I don't think.
pinch out any extras leaving only one per pellet to grow on, choosing the strongest.
good luck,
KarenO
As an example, this is what mine looked like last year with no fert yet and lots of light as described above. about 2 weeks old.

[kforbs126]

Thank you everyone for all the replies and information. This is the first year i've started from seed and I am learning. Hopefully all this is recoverable. I will know next time that when I see the first sprout take them off the heating mat. I may do another batch after this batch is transplanted.

[JamesL]

Kristin,
I have saved plants that look worse and thrown out plants that look better. I am sure many here have. It's easy for an experienced grower to look at your photo and think that a restart might be necessary. Once you become more experienced your focus jumps more to results, and will I get them based on what I see? But when you are just learning, the process itself is more important simply because you haven't done it before.
You got good advice here so follow it and you should be just fine.
I looked through you blog posts and as you can tell from the pics, the seeds will germinate at separate times. For future - I would get another plastic tray to put under the lights and keep the heat mat separate. As soon as they pop their heads up, move the popped ones out of the heated tray and under the lights with no bottom heat.
You also need to be careful running the heat mats without a thermostat. From experience I can tell you that it is probably too hot to begin with. I have cooked more than a few batches of seeds before figuring that out.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[Stvrob]

As for when to pot them up, why dont you put them directly in the ground? You wont have freezing weather in San Diego will you? That will cure their legginess

[Father'sDaughter]

I was surprised that anyone would tell you to throw them out--especially here on T'ville!

I would agree with all who said they do have a fighting chance. Don't toss them unless you want to. Just keep them close under the light, and a fan blowing on them very, very gently for a short time each day will help toughen them up. This might be preferable to brushing your hand over them given how delicate the stems are right now. And when they have formed their fist true leaves and you transplant, follow the advice given and bury most of the stem. Good luck!

[Father'sDaughter]

Oh yeah -- when you do pot them up, be careful never to handle them by the stem.