seedlings not growing

[berigora]

I sowed some tomato, eggplant and capsicum seeds at the end of September (spring in Australia). They came up OK but seem to have "stuck" at a couple of leaves each. They have been that way for the last six weeks! This isn't the first time this has happened and I am wondering what I have done wrong. Thanks.

[Doug9345]

I've had that happen more than once. What I've determined for the cause of my plants to get to a size and stop:

Too crowded. I tend to plant too many in small cups and they never get bigger because their roots can get any bigger.

Not enough Light. Plants energy comes from sunlight. NO enough light and they don't have the energy to build more plant tissue.

I tend to be too stingy with fertilizer.

Not warm enough. Peppers are going to like growing in a 18 - 20 degree Celsius room.

[Redbaron]

Agree with Doug. If a plant has nutrients, warmth, space, sunlight, and water, then it should grow. But also there is the mystery "stuck" that happens for no known reason. (there is always a reason, but you may not be able to figure out what it is) I had some flowers do that last year.

The way I solved it was to transplant them in the garden even though they were still too small. Lost a couple, but most of them snapped out of it once they got into the garden bed. I learned a valuable lesson too. Once in the garden the small "stuck" plants generally caught up with the bigger ones in no time. In just a couple weeks you couldn't tell which was which. Some of those "stuck" plants ended up being the best in the end.

That taught me the main reason to plant a larger seedling in the garden is survival against some outside force. one grasshopper can completely destroy a small seedling in a single bite. A larger plant would be almost not effected at all. However, once the plant gets settled in, it isn't so much how big it was when you transplanted it, as simply the days since it was transplanted and the conditions it has in its final location.

[Tania]

Overwatering is one of the main reasons for stunted growth. Another one is a bad soil mix.

[kilroyscarnival]

Can you post pictures? I'm betting someone smarter and more experienced than I could tell a lot by looking.

It got warmer again here in Orlando, and I noticed my peppers are growing more now. Cool nights seemed to be the problem.

[KarenO]

too cool temps will markedly slow both tomato and pepper growth.

[livinonfaith]

I'll give another vote for low light. Are they indoors?

Happened to me last year with some tomatoes. As soon as I moved them to the brighter greenhouse, they started to take off again.

[berigora]

Thanks for your replies and suggestions. I don't think temperature or crowding is the problem; the seedlings have been pricked out into good quality potting mix and have been fed regularly. However, it is possible that I have been a bit too keen not to let them dry out.

I am wondering now if the seedlings are getting the light they need. They are currently in a situation where they receive dappled sunlight for most of the day. Perhaps that isn't enough?

I am going to plant them out as Redbaron suggests in the hope that they might eventually do what's expected of them. Fortunately we have a long growing season here. Thanks again for your help.

[Cole_Robbie]

the seedlings have been pricked out into good quality potting mix and have been fed regularly.

What did you feed them? Seedlings and potted plants in general are very easy to kill with chemical fertilizers. I would wonder if you have salt build-up and nutrient lock-out, which is why they live but don't grow.

Just some compost in the media should be enough to fertilize a seedling. If the leaves start to yellow, I give them a little Alaskan Fish fertilizer. Organic fertilizers are much easier to use and a lot more forgiving, especially with seedlings.

[berigora]

They went into a peat and coir based potting mix and were fed with seaweed extract ( I don't use chemical fertilisers). They got the same treatment as usual.

I have just planted them out as suggested by Redbaron and they have been lightly watered. Fingers crossed.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by berigora

They went into a peat and coir based potting mix and were fed with seaweed extract ( I don't use chemical fertilisers). They got the same treatment as usual.

I have just planted them out as suggested by Redbaron and they have been lightly watered. Fingers crossed.

Keep us updated please! And pics would be cool if possible!

[Tania]

I have heard that coir is not the best growing media - I saw an article somewhere that compared different brands of coir with peat moss, and the conclusion was that coir-based mixes stunt the growth, in some cases significantly, compared to peat moss.

I will try to find a link to that article and post it here.

[NickD]

I had a similar experience recently. In the middle of October I started some dwarf tomato seeds in coir, and put them very close to my fluorescent lights, so lack of light wasn't an issue. The seedlings grew very slowly, only having two true leaves until recently. I tried lightly fertilizing, but it didn't make a difference. One possible issue is that we keep our house chilly (62F degrees on the thermostat, but probably upper 50s where the seedlings were being kept).

I got tired of waiting for the seedlings, so several days ago (last Friday) I transplanted them into a primarily peat-based mixture (which contains a small amount of fertilizer), and made sure that they were being kept warmer. In this short amount of time, they've put on another set of leaves and seem to be growing quickly.

So, I'm not sure what caused this apparent increase in seedling vigor. It may have been the different mixture (which I find easier to keep evenly watered than the coir) or the raised temperature, but things are looking up!

Nick

[kilroyscarnival]

I started some of my seedlings in coir. I did top off with a soil/compost mix, but they did really jump when I transplanted them.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by kilroyscarnival

I started some of my seedlings in coir. I did top off with a soil/compost mix, but they did really jump when I transplanted them.

Let's just hope berigora's do too. Otherwise I will feel like a heel.

That's the scary part of giving advise over the Internet. In person, seeing the plants and the conditions you can generally get a pretty good idea what's going on and what can help. But over the Internet it is somewhat vague. If it works, then awesome I could help. If it doesn't.......

Over all I do think the internet is great though. So much to learn talking to other experienced gardeners and breeders. When I think back at how I mostly learned, which was by doing and mostly trial and error, with a few magazine articles and antiquated books to help .... I have to laugh at a few of my epic mistakes! And a few epic surprise successes! The learning curve would have been SOOOO much faster if we had Tomatoville back then!

I remember once Gramps said, "Why not hill those onions like we used to do our potatoes?" So after a TON of back breaking work all done by hand with hoes, turns out all we did was stop our onions in their tracks! And that was before that the best onions I had ever grown! Completely ruined the entire crop!

Or the time I decided to fertilise our newly transplanted apricot tree heavily, then mulch it with pure sawdust! Theory was to get it to grow great all summer so the following year we might get a good crop. Sure enough it made a blaze of growth! Then the sawdust started releasing it's nitrogen late fall and that blaze of growth continued! The tree quadrupled or more in size in the first year we transplanted it! But all the growth was soft and winter killed it! Meanwhile the trees that got no special treatment grew slower, pulled through the winter perfectly even being rated less hardy for our zone! and gave us fruit!

Of course sometimes mistakes turn out brilliant! Like the time I planted our fall collards too late and an early snow buried them. The seeds actually sprouted during the winter grew under the snow and when the snow melted we had spring collards in North Central Indiana! In late February!