Quote:
Originally Posted by sa226
Any gardeners in here? We do a tiny garden in our back yard every summer. We got tired of spending a bunch of money on teenage tomato plants from Costco, so we started seedlings this year.
However , now I have no idea what to do with 2 of them. They are 2 feet tall and growing like crazy. It's going to be like Jumanji in here before we can plant them outside.
Can we prune them down? I read something somewhere that it could be that they're not getting enough sun inside, so they are growing up to try and "reach the sun" rather than sit and stock up.
Anyhow, advise would be appreciated.
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That's called getting leggy. Basically it happens as they "reach" for the sun - once they've grown you can't do much to fix it. The way to prevent it from happening is get them more light. In Calgary in the spring you probably need artificial light. The other thing that will help is a fan as mentioned.
The one thing you can do that helps a bit is bury them deeper when you transplant them. Bury the first set of leaves in the dirt, and they'll grow out into additional roots, that makes it more sturdy and a bit shorter. But if they don't have enough light they'll keep doing it.
If you already have artificial light on them you can put the lights closer to the plants. LEDs can go like a couple of inches away, while other types need to be a bit further away so the plants don't get heat damaged.
Edited to add: I've never tried this but you could:
https://www.theseedcollection.com.au...-Lease-of-Life
Final edit: my kid sells tomato plants every spring for like $3-4 (advertised on CP!) And you can get them around that price on kijiji as well.