Very Leggy Cabbage Seedlings

[JoJoB]

Have sown summer cabbage and they have produced incredibly leggy seedlings despite being in a light place. Is this normal? Should I bury them deep when I plant them on ?

[Primrose]

I have the same problem with my first batch of early lettuces sown on a window sill so will await responses with interest. Last year this happened to my broccoli, and although I planted the seedlings deep they never really lost their straggly appearance as they matured.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear JoJoB, and Primrose, it's either not enough light due to short days or not enough light getting on the plants, or it's to warm for the amount of light they are getting.
It's what i class as them growing to soft, and trying to force them on unnaturaly.

Sorry to be an old stick in the mud.

[Johnboy]

Hi both Primrose and JoJoB,
I feel this is because they were sown too soon in the year. If it were me I would dump them and start again. Every year we get the same sort of postings and it is normally with Tomatoes but we probably will have those to deal with shortly,
I have found that unless you have the absolutely correct environment for your seedlings to go into without becoming leggy or checked in any other way it is best to lag behind the season slightly.
With Beans for instance, it is best to be able to plant your beans in pots and as soon after the first pair of true leaves appear pop them into the row.
They then grow unchecked and will in fact overtake those that have been planted too soon and received a set back.
This year has been a difficult one to gauge but although people are marvelling at impending snow to me it is nothing new. I was born in April and was born in a blizzard so bad was it that my father could not get to see me until I was a week old. When I started gardening on my own account the seasons were quite marked but today they follow the same pattern but cannot be said to be so defined. I have been expecting this coming cold snap.
BTW Primrose for many years I grew Brassicas and Lettuce Plants as part of my income and I have never had to use heat to germinate. They were in the tunnels on the benches and if they had recently germinated and were a bit tender they were covered at night with newspapers and when fleece was invented I switched to that.
JB.

[Malk]

As the voice of the disorganised I always have a few tomatoes or whatever that go all leggy.

I do just replant them deep, figuring (probably wrongly) that the extra stem will give the plant extra rooting space. They always do fine as long as they are not checked by any cold weather.

[Johnboy]

Hi Malk,
It actually does produce roots in the case of Tomatoes but the plant structure is still wrong.
Just sow them a little later. Unless you are growing mammoth vegetables for show there is no race to be won.
Better to be a tad late than a tad early where plants are concerned. The rest of life as I see it is the other way round.
JB.

[Geoff]

JB

As you say snow is not unusual, I have two sisters and we were all born in snowy weather.
The most unusual probably my elder sister 08/11/30, other sister was a more famous winter on 04/04/40 (if you like the symmetry of that date our mother was 05/05/05) mine was the most famous bad winter 07/03/47 (must apply for my bus pass - didn't come automatically).
I agree leggy brassicas are right offs but it doesn't seem to do much harm to tomatoes.

[Johnboy]

Hi Geoff,
I was born almost 10 years, almost to the day, before your sister 04-04-40 and the whole month of April was a bad one.
I understand right until the first week in May and them as though you had turned on an electric light the weather changed and there were not even any late frosts. In the year of your birth the winter was a real pig. Here abouts many farm roads are old timber hauls that have been caused by dragging timber from the forest and are generally about 6ft deep and one filled with snow and went to ice and on the south side where it doesn't get the sun the ice didn't disappear until June 1953. The Summer of 1947 was wonderful, as most summers were then. Strange that history now regards 1940 to 1975 as 'The mini Ice Age'
JB.

[dewwex]

With regard to leggy Brassica seedlings. I have a question regarding sowing depths. i grow my seedlings in modules 1 or 2 seeds to each cell. i don't go for that pricking out lark with any of my veg. If i have sown 2 seeds,i get rid of one of the seedlings if both germinate.

For those who do similar,
have you found the best sowing depth for brassicas? lets say you sowing Brussel sprouts in early march.Information from seed packets/magazines can vary from 0.5 cm to 2 cm. what i am wondering, does a deeper or shallower planting dept have any baring on leggyness? My inkling at first was that deeper gave better results, but i not sure? Anyone tested this?

[Primrose]

I have found that I tend to get different levels of legginess, depending on whether I sow in seed trays/individual plugs, or direct in the ground. I suspect this may be due to temperature or light levels as when I sow direct into the ground I often sow deeper than the seed packets recommend. My indoor sowings tend to be in environments where light may only be coming onto the trays from one side (i.e. on a window sill) and I suspect that this in itself causes plants to be leggy because they are forcing themselves in one direction to catch as much light as possible. Outdoor sowings have light from every direction and my theory is that even if the seeds are sown deeper than recommended, the availability of all-round light facilitates more sturdy growing.

[dewwex]

ya. i wonder is the shallower type sowing more of a pricking out later type of advice?

[Monika]

The many leggy seedlings I have thrown away in the past! It's always sooo tempting to start sowing when the sun is out and spring seems to have sprung. But I have learned my lessons over nigh on 60 years of gardening and now wait patiently until things steady a bit, like, say, mid-April for outdoor sowing! The only things sown so far this year are the onions, leeks and sweet peas, all doing nicely in the unheated greenhouse, though covered with bubble wrap at night at the moment, and a few lettuce seedlings in Jiffy 7's on the kitchen window sill. When this cold spell has finished, I will start the herbs in pots and a few more salad vegetables. The last few days' fierce northerly winds have almost toppled our early sprouting broccoli and winter cauliflowers and no seedlings of any description would have survived them. So, paience.

[Primrose]

I get the feeling with so many of us that our amateur vegetable growing every Spring is more an act of anticipation, in that after a winter of inactivity, the moment we feel the sun on our back one warm day, we're all out there wasting the contents of our expensive seed packets because we simply can't wait to get going. I've done this so often and after all these years I still sowed a packet of expensive kohl rabi seeds despite knowing the weather forecasters were predicting a really cold spell. Perhaps I need somebody to physically incarcerate me indoors until mid April when the soil has started to warm up.

[Bren]

I grow seeds on my window sill, once they are through or when I transplant them I reverse the tray each morning, so the side thats nearest the pane of glass today will be on the room side tomorrow, so far so good, they seem sturdy enough.
Bren

[dewwex]

good points monika and primrose about our haste for sowing in spring. by accident i sowed my parsnips in mid may 2 years ago. this would be very late in most peoples eyes. but hey, they were huge. up to 4 inchs in diameter across the top, and a good 10 inchs of usable length. probably about 20 inchs to root tip. germination was rapid also. i did the same last year and got the same results. So why sow in march, after all its not something you really want to eat till the autumn anyhow! for me anyway.

normal 'white gem' varity.