We collected the chicken eggs together and then filled up our new seedling trays with seed raising mix. I then planted the seeds while he splashed in his water table. Today I planted nine different varieties of tomatoes, eggplant, sugar baby watermelon, golden midget watermelon, beans (mixed colours), capsicum and some flowers for companion plants - borage, calendula and marigolds.
It's been so cold and wet lately that I decided to keep my first two seedling trays on the kitchen bench. This caused the seedlings to start growing leggy as the tried to grow towards the light (the kitchen window). I'm going to pull them out and start again since I've got lots of seeds and enough time to do this.
Here are some tips and tricks I've learnt to help prevent this from happening next time...
1. If you are growing them inside by a window, turn the tray each day to prevent seedlings from going leggy.
2. Water them from the bottom, instead of the top e.g. put water in the tray underneath.
3. If you don't have a greenhouse you can use a clear plastic storage box instead. That way you can put the seedlings outside during the day and bring them inside again at night.
2. Water them from the bottom, instead of the top e.g. put water in the tray underneath.
3. If you don't have a greenhouse you can use a clear plastic storage box instead. That way you can put the seedlings outside during the day and bring them inside again at night.
Have you got leggy seedlings that you want to try to save? Repot them and ensure the seed raising mix is almost up to the first set of leaves. Place somewhere with more light and they should slowly recover.
Hopefully we have better luck with these next two trays.
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