Low Humidity is KILLING me

[Gardeneer]

How reliable your humidistat is ?
36% RH is like a desert condition.

[brownrexx]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

How reliable your humidistat is ?
36% RH is like a desert condition.

My friend lives in the New Mexico desert and her humidity is 10%

RH at my house today is 48%. It is raining and I have a humidifier on my central hot air heating system.

I don't have 200 seedlings, only about 40 but I water every other day.

[Worth1]

Alpine Texas elevation 4,475 feet humidity at this time 17%
Worth

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

How reliable your humidistat is ?
36% RH is like a desert condition.

I have two different ones and they are in different rooms, only off by about 1 - 2% of each other.

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by KarenO

I don't see how wiping a whole room down with a wet cloth is easier than watering?

I must say the couple hours spent doing that and letting the wood hydrate seems to have helped a lot. Without that, any bit of moisture in the air would keep getting sucked up.

Originally Posted by KarenO

Daily watering is normal as far as I'm concerned. Larger pots would help next year Along with the use of a potting mix with polymers for retention of water. Option two, plant later. The larger the seedling, the more water it needs and there is no getting around that. Post some pics
KarenO

Watering once or twice weekly had been more of my norm and my potting mix retains water fairly well. Middle picture below is a tray of plants just potted up, looking a bit wilty still but they perked up.

[KarenO]

Great looking plants, they will be worth all your hard work!

KarenO

[oakley]

Ah ha. Yes, you started too soon and the pots are not accommodating to their size.
The bottom pics. If you start soon next year consider the 4inch tall pots. Twice the height but the same girth. Probably lots of root mass in those tiny pots.

I did the same, starting too soon, but i always do. Then started another full tray two
weeks later. And another last week that is really the correct time to start for me.

I have a 1010 tray, the first starts, still in their tiny cells. They dry out daily. (i took out
and potted up what i needed). The remainders are for give-aways to friend and family
that i've just not gotten around to...also insurance plants.

Very healthy and look great. Just very thirsty.

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by oakley

Ah ha. Yes, you started too soon and the pots are not accommodating to their size.
The bottom pics. If you start soon next year consider the 4inch tall pots. Twice the height but the same girth. Probably lots of root mass in those tiny pots.

Those pots are 3-1/2" square x 5-1/2" tall (0.3 gallon capacity). Buried the plants about 2" when I potted them up.

.... and yes, once I started sowing pepper seeds in February, I just rolled right into my tomatoes - should have waited 3-4 weeks longer than I did.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by rhines81

Those pots are 3-1/2" square x 5-1/2" tall (0.3 gallon capacity). Buried the plants about 2" when I potted them up.

.... and yes, once I started sowing pepper seeds in February, I just rolled right into my tomatoes - should have waited 3-4 weeks longer than I did.

[oakley]

Sorry, my bad, i meant 4 inch 'tall' pots..they are 7-8 inches tall...a big red cup fits inside of them,
so they hold about 25% more soil than the big red cups being that they are square not round.

I'll take a pic as my starts are so similar to yours.

[Worth1]

I dont have a humidimometer but I looked on line and it said 30%.
It just got through raining cats and dogs last night.

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by oakley

Sorry, my bad, i meant 4 inch 'tall' pots..they are 7-8 inches tall...a big red cup fits inside of them,
so they hold about 25% more soil than the big red cups being that they are square not round.

I'll take a pic as my starts are so similar to yours.

I found some square tree pots that were 4"x9-1/2" deep, but I think the smartest thing to do is refrain from planting (tomatoes) too early next year. I have 115 tomato plants growing with 'a few' new ones every day. A few of my plants will end up on my deck in 5 gallon buckets, so from the 3.5" pots they will find their final home. Another 25-30 tomatoes will end up in my garden 1st week of May this year - the remainder (80+) are spares and give-aways (way too many), so after the next 2-3 weeks I will begin the process of getting rid of those to better homes.

Due to poor germination, I have most of what I need for my pepper plants (still short on a few varieties) with a few spares and will probably only have 30 pepper plants as give-aways, but for all the ones I have - I am VERY glad that I started them early, they are very low maintenance and I should get a bumper crop in our short season (hopefully).

Edit: Well, I just took a look at my earliest pepper plants. I have 2 flowers on the Chimayo and buds on the Fresno and Leutschauer Paprika plants. Yep, peppers may have been started too early too!!!!

[rhines81]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I dont have a humidimometer but I looked on line and it said 30%.
It just got through raining cats and dogs last night.

43% outside here after a couple of days of rain - currently only 35% inside with the humidifier running.

[oakley]

Peppers here...been pinching out the grow tip. I have another batch started as i should have.
Just need insurance so i also start way early.