Week 4 (08.03.08) Mini Greenhouse seedlings progress and casulties

Posted on 09. Mar, 2008 by Tracey in My Veg Plot, Plan Plot

I had a slight accident with my seedlings in the modules in the mini greenhouse. I was reading a forum message on GYO Grapevine about encouraging your seedlings to grow 2 true pairs of leaves (so you can transplant them) as mine still only have their 1st pair of leaves. It said if you put a piece of white card behind your seedlings it can bounce the light towards them, which can only be a good thing.

However I improvised as I didn’t have any white card and opted for the flat underside of my polystyrene pot tray which I propped up behind the seed tray. It seemed ok until yesterday when I realised I couldn’t actually see my seedings anymore as they were underneath the tray, it had toppled over and flattened my seedlings!

However I think I may be able to salvage most tomato and 1 cucumber seeding and luckily my pepper seeds are only just breaking the surface so they have been saved from bended stems. The calabrese seedlings had gone a bit leggy so I think I will scrap them and try again with another batch anyway.
Progress points:

Sowed 2 types of Tomato, cucumber, pepper and calabrese seeds on 9th February outdoors in mini greenhouse under a lid,
Brought indoors 12th February and put on windowsill for 4 days,
Calabrese, tomato and cucumber seeds germinated,
Took back outdoors into mini greenhouse 24th February (uncovered),
First 2 pairs of leaves forming on tomato, cucumber and calabrese seedlings – 24th February,
Accident with polystrene tray and crushed some seedlings stems – 8th March,
Casulty list includes 1 cucumber, few tomato and most calabrese seedlings – 8th March,
Pepper seedlings are breaking soil surface – 8th March.