Evan Kruschke

Hi all. I recently transplanted a large number of my veggies outside. They were outside for a couple days before I noticed there were holes appearing in the leaves. They range from smaller holes to be absolutely ravaged. It is mostly effecting my peppers, but they are showing up on my tomatoes and cucumbers as well. My first thought is pests (my peppers plants had aphids while in pots) but I cannot see any visible pests. What could be going on and how can I fix it?

Interesting! I never would have thought fiberglass. I’ve found the string is relatively easy to get out, so I was able to get to most of that. To be safe I have been removing as much as I can, but not sweating it a whole ton of there is still some on there.

I'm using the GE LED grow light. It's 40w and 72 PPF. It states that it's a "balanced light spectrum" specifically made for seeds and greens. This is my very first grow light. I picked up a couple at a local overstock shop for 1/3 of what they normally cost. I plan on transplanting to my garden (or my patio for my herbs) here in a month or so. As you can see, I have two set up. I have one lower to the seedlings for my peppers, cucumber and tomatoes. My second one is higher up, as I am going to be getting herbs under that one next.

Mike Lafay wrote:Like you, I've gotten bitten by the "plant all the tomato variety" bug. But since I have far too many plants and not enough places, choices had to be made.

Yes I've been really excited to different varieties this year. Plus I'm excited for my kids to see all the different colors/shapes/sizes of tomatoes.

The purple color has yet to reach the leaves yet (they are just getting their set of true leaves). I'm thinking I'll just keep an eye on them as they grow. I don't want to overact and try and make a correction that could damage them even more.

Ah gotcha! It does seem to be affecting all of my tomato plants though. I'm growing:

Brandywine, Lillian's Yellow, Roma, Early girl, Sun gold and Sweet Million.

First time growing tomatoes from seeds. Started them on a seed mat and then moved to a grow light after germination. However, I've noticed all of them starting to get purple stems. Is this normal? The internet seems to say many different things on the topic! Is it normal? Not enough nutrients? Too cold? I've attached a picture of one of the plant as well as my light set up.

I wasn't extremely clear in my earlier posts; I'm trying to get my soil no higher than 80 degrees. I set my thermostat to 90 in an attempt to keep my mat heating in order to get it to 80. After getting tit to the right spot and proper insulation,  it's keeping around 75 which is just fine by me. Before it was only heating to about 2 degrees above room temp (67).

As far as grow lights, if I can get the germinated seedlings to a sunny windowsill, will that work? Or should I just invest in a light? If the seedlings are some natural light AND grow light UV's, will that be bad? I will absolutely check out those books! Is the one you authored under your name?

I’m in the very beginning stages of sheet composting my garden. I’m covering the whole area with cardboard, and I usually take all the tape and stickers off. However, I have recently been getting this paper tape reinforced with some sort of string. It is REALLY hard to get off all the way. But it got me thinking, would the tape and string just break down eventually?

Jen Fulkerson wrote:This was one of the things I learned the hard way.  The seeds need to be removed from the mat as soon as they germinate.  I read this after I had seeded  a 72 cell tray of a bunch of different seeds.  If the seedlings are left on the mat they grow to fast and can get spindly.  Tomatoes are no big deal, I just planted them deep when I repotted them.  I had a few other veggies I  tossed to the chickens, and started over.  
Now I cut the cells in sections of 6 and plant like seed's together. Then if the tomatoes pop up I remove them  and can leave the peppers.   You get the idea.  Lesson learned.

Thanks for this info Jen, this was actually my next question! So by germinate, do you mean as soon as I start to see green? Or after they have popped up a bit? I've noticed my tomatoes are a bit thin and spindly, but I've never grown from seeds before, so I have nothing to compare it to. I've attached photos of my romas and some cucumbers. I took them off the mat just now, hopefully it wasn't too late, especially since the mat wasn't getting super hot.

I will absolutely try and find some sort of dome too. I know they have some domed seed cells on Amazon that I might try.