Your seedlings on your window sill may suffer

Many of us leave seedlings inside on window sills because we think that windows sills are the best place. And indeed, in most cases that is true. But let us look at scenarios when seedlings on your window sill may actually not be happy. There are several reasons, perhaps you will see that it also applies to your seedlings. The first symptom is a rather weak and elongated seedling – elongated because it strives to reach light. The other most common reasons include incorrect temperature and irrigation. If these tree basic conditions are not correctly set, your seedling will suffer.

Lack of light

Especially seedlings that germinate at the beginning of March (those you planted in February) are affected by this fundamental problem. Insufficient light is the reason why seedlings have tendency to climb and climb and before long they become thin and weak. It does not matter which way your window faces, because the days are still short in February and March and simply do not provide sufficient light to your seedlings. There is also very little UV rays and they have hard time to penetrate through double-glazed windows. The solution is to provide an artificial lighting – recommended in February and early March.

Photo: Pixabay

Room temperature

Another problem is the temperature in your room. Many of us heat rooms too much with the intention to speed up the germination. The temperature is often 20 °C and that is too much. If you want your plants to grow at a natural pace, the temperature should be between 16 and 18 °C. A very bad situation is when you have the heater right under the window sill. This increases the “local” temperature even more and that is not good. Your plants are overheated and the more they are overheated, the more light they need!

Proper seedling growing

The best way to grow high-quality seedlings is to use a greenhouse (you need to ventilate often and cover seedlings at night) that can be heated, or even a winter garden. Unfortunately, not everyone has an access to a greenhouse so the rest of us will have to keep using window sill, but at least, now we know what to watch for.

Preview photo: Pixabay