Last year, I stumbled into an opportunity to help care for a large property with mature gardens and a small greenhouse. The greenhouse is mostly used to overwinter a variety of tropical and desert plants. tThis time of year, it is also perfect for housing seedlings for the property owner’s vegetable garden. As is usual when I start seeds indoors, my confidence in my green thumb was tested.

Preparation

With hope that I could start seeds indoors in the same container until it was time to plant them in the garden, I decided to try Jiffy Tomato Greenhouses. These come with large, netted compressed soil disks, a black plastic tray (also known as a “flat”), and a clear lid. I added water to expand the soil and planted one seed per disk. I also wanted to give the seedlings more hours of light than the current day length provided. So, I placed the flats in a large closet adjacent to the greenhouse. It contained a wire shelving unit rigged with fluorescent lighting and a timer.

Unfortunately, the timer failed to work. Instead of providing the 14 hours of light for which it was set, it sporadically turned on and off. Even better, it then quit working altogether. Even more unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until after most of the seeds had sprouted. They spent a long weekend in total darkness. It figures that, just when I think I have seed-starting figured out, the timer would fail. Nothing can ever just be easy, right?

Remedies

I quickly moved the trays out into the greenhouse when I realized what had happened. But, because they sprouted earlier than the basil and peppers, the poor little tomato seedlings had already developed into a floppy mess of spindly stems. This experience took me right back to a science experiment I conducted in elementary school. I had compared seeds that were sprouted in either complete darkness, under artificial light, or in sunlight. I was amazed to learn that seeds would even sprout in total darkness. However, they were weak and pale and never grew much past their seed leaves. Apparently the universe thought I needed to learn this lesson again when I tried to start seeds indoors.

Results

The tomatoes are recovering nicely in the greenhouse. However, their long spindly stems are starting to root where they flopped over and touched the soil of adjacent seedlings. I had hoped to grow them in the soil disks until it was time to plant them in the garden. However, I will have either have to make tiny stakes to support them. Alternatively I could transplant them all into small pots and plant them deep to fix the floppy stem problem. It’s not the end of the world. However, it definitely means more work. The peppers and basil are coming along nicely and should be fine if left to grow in the same soil disk they were planted in. Then there are the Dragon Wing Begonias I also tried to start from seed this year. But that’s a whole other story…