After a few days, to a few weeks you should have sprouted plants (seedlings), place them in a place that provides warmth and gets plenty of light. Seedlings need 12-14 hours of light each day to grow strong and healthy. Most of us do not have a greenhouse, so a sunny, south facing window will suffice.
If you don’t have that option, you can use inexpensive fluorescent lighting to do the job. I built a plant stand out of PVC pipe, and installed wire shelving for the plants to sit on, then hung fluorescent fixtures (shop lights) with small chains. If you use this option buy a cool white and a warm white bulb for each fixture, to provide the proper type of lighting for the seedlings. It’s very important to keep the light within 3 inches of the seedlings to provide maximum light to them. If you can’t lower the light, you should raise the seedlings by putting something under them. But I can’t stress enough how important this is. If the light source is to far away, the seedlings will grow spindly and weak.
Also important is the need to provide enough water. Use your finger to check the medium, if the soil feels damp to the touch, no need to water, if it feels dry, add some water. Your seedling vessel should be in a tray or some type of pan, pour the water in it and let the medium soak it up. After 10-15 minutes the remaining water should be removed, as you don’t want to waterlog the soil. (A turkey baster comes in handy for this). Over watering will cause damping off which will kill the seedling in a very short time, sometimes overnight.
After a couple of weeks you will notice the plants start to get their first “TRUE LEAVES”. This is when I start adding a weak fertilizer when watering. As I said in an earlier article, there are many brands available, select one and use half of what is recommended by the instructions. For example, I use Miracle Grow, the recommended amount is 2 tablespoons to a gallon of water, I use 1 tablespoon.
As soon as you feel that your seedlings will not be harmed by frost, move them to a sunny location outside, or to a porch, driveway, etc…, to start getting them acclimated to living in the real world. It’s very important that you DO NOT put them into full sun at first. The seedlings can get sun burnt and would be a major setback for them and you.
At first let them sit in full sun for 30 minutes to an hour. Increase this time by 30 minutes for a few days until you feel they will be ok with being outside. Remember to protect them if a cold snap is expected, by covering with newspapers or an old sheet, drop cloth, or something suitable. Bring them inside if you are in doubt, just don’t let them freeze.
When the plants reach 3-5 inches tall, it’s time to transplant them into separate containers to allow room to grow. If left to long crowded together, the seedlings will compete with each other to get the maximum amount of light, in the process shading their fellow siblings and causing them to get spindly.
Using the same soil less medium used for planting, DRY FILL (no water added to the medium) whatever container you choose, to within ½ inch of the top (I have used peat pots, styrofoam cups, etc.). Take your vessel of seedlings and place the whole thing into a pan of warm water. This will make the job of separating the seedlings from each other much easier. Gently start separating the seedlings from each other, once the medium has absorbed enough water this will be very easy to do. Don’t worry, seedlings are tough little dudes, you will see that they come apart quite easily with a gentle pull.
Take each seedling, with the root lying along your index finger, and burrow a hole with your finger into the medium, in the new container. You want the top of the seedling just sticking out at the top of the medium. Give the container a few gentle shakes to settle the medium around the seedling. Now is the time to water the transplant, don’t wait until you’re done transplanting as the dry medium will suck all the moisture out of the seedling. Continue transplanting until all have their new home. You’ll probably notice the plants looking poor for the next couple of days, this is caused by the stress of transplanting, but the seedlings will recover very quickly. Remember to keep them watered very well during this period. Place the transplanted seedlings back in to their sunny environment and watch them grow.
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