Seeds to Plants

My seeds germinated nicely in our bathtub.  Now, they can be moved to the shop to grow under the full spectrum grow lights.  The cold of the shop won't bother little plants at all.  It isn't freezing in the shop since it is attached to the house.  It is just too cold to germinate seeds down there.  We can work in the shop comfortably wearing a sweatshirt on most days.

As you can see from this picture, most of my seeds sprouted into little plants.  This was good considering my seeds were several years old.  I do keep them in the refrigerator while we aren't using them.

Here is a picture of the grow cart that Michael made.  If you look at the shelf with the plants, you can see that the lights are very low to the plants.  They are almost sitting on top of the plants, but they aren't touching them.  This is a very important step in growing young plants under grow lights.  If you leave the lights far away from the plant, the plants will grow leggy.  They will not grow a sturdy root system.  Instead, they will put all of their energy into growing the stem long to reach the light.  These plants will never mature into good plants because their root systems are so weak.  We hang our lights on chains that can be moved up and down as needed depending on the size of the plants.  We can also add more lights to double our growing area.  We just don't need them right now, and the full spectrum grow lights are expensive.  I am sure I will be purchasing them when we are growing our next batch of plants.  I will let my little plants grow a bit more in their tray to let the root systems get stronger.  In the next few days, I will be transplanting each plant into its own little pot.  This is when the work really starts!

grace and peace,
julie