Sparkly seedlings

The heated propagation trays are really speeding up the seedlings, but some are coming up a bit leggy and spindly. 


I read that it helps to offer the seeds a bit of shade, as they can get leggy because it’s too bright.

So I grabbed a scarf to cover the seed trays. As this happens to be a very sparkly scarf, it gives the seeds both a bit of shade and a rather glamorous makeover.


This scarf usually stays packed away till Xmas but it’s good to see it shine in February!

I’m trying to be relatively restrained with the number of seeds sown this early in the year, because each plant from the propagator will need to grow on in the greenhouse until it’s garden ready – and there is limited space in there.  

The Propagator has started a trial to see how well early seeds do against those sown later in the year. I’m watching this with interest but personally prefer to have a few seeds on the go in February- just because I like a few green shoots around.

8 thoughts on “Sparkly seedlings”

  1. Ooh a link! First one, how exciting. Do you think they might be leggy cos there’s not enough light? I’m stretching for what light there is? Guess they’ll get even leggier if so. Very smartly attired, regardless…!

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    1. They’re on a sunny, south facing window sill, so my guess was too much rather than not enough light- but I don’t know! I’ll keep an eye on them and see how they get on 🙂

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  2. I’d bet on the “not enough light.” Too many times, we think it’s a sunny windowsill, but discount the number of foggy/cloudy/stormy hours that actually occur. Surprisingly, even when I had commercial greenhouses, sometimes there was not enough sunny hours to keep plants compact.

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  3. I agree this is a insufficient light issue! See https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/propagation/seeds/leggy-seedling.htm for any overview. It makes sense intuitively too – the plant nodes stretch out to reach for light, at the cost of structural integrity 🙂

    Conversely, you can experiment with high light settings, and induce the opposite effect – short stubby plants that are very bushy. The space in between nodes will be a lot shorter.

    Also check out https://www.maximumyield.com/are-your-plants-getting-enough-light/2/1231

    If you are really curious, there are cheap light meters on Amazon – they are OK in my experience but can give you an idea of the number of hours per day of light a given are gets.

    Happy planting!

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