starting seedlings - preventing "leggyness"

[Dan_Shade]

ok, what's the trick?

i have a bunch of plants that are hair thin and 4 inches tall (some "long" vice tall).

is it possible to get them to grow without artificial light?  how did the old timers do it?

[Roxie]

Well, I can't speak for all of the old timer's, but there used to be a big round yella thing come up in the East pret near every morning.  I've used that to some good advantage.   :D

What kind of seeds are ya trying to start? 

[Dan_Shade]

various peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower, brocolli, cabbage, brussel sprouts (I don't think I missed any).

I have them on a rack I made in a southwest facing window currently, some others are in a south east window.  but they are all inside.

[Corley5]

Turn a fan on them.  The breeze promotes a thicker stem 

[Norm]

Corley's right about the fan helping but to be honest with you a window's sunlight will cause this. The best solution is to use grow lights or a cold box outside with good sun exposure.

[Dan_Shade]

ok, i may see if I can get something made up this weekend to get them outside.  I guess i'm concerned with the temps outside at this point.  I'm mainly doing this for "fun", but i do like playing around with this stuff....

I guess I know why started plants are more expensive than seeds!

[crtreedude]

Plants reach for the sun - trying to defeat that is going to be a bit hard.

[SwampDonkey]

Up here we can't put out tomatoes until about the 2nd week of June for fear of late spring frost. I used to make a green house out of old windows on the south side of the barn and stick plants in there the end of April or first part of May to toughen them up from being in the house in a window.

Corley's idea works to thicken up the stems also.

[sprucebunny]

Happy 10,000 th post, SD 

[treebucker]

They've hit the nail on the head...more light/good air flow but also look at thinning them out which will also help fix the first two problems. This is a good time to put them into a larger pot.