Oh no! Leggy Seedlings! - Kitchen Garden Magazine

Do your seedlings look like this? It’s not unusual if we start sowing indoors early that we get leggy seedlings

I’ve often had this problem with tomato and pepper seedlings. So keen to get sowing and making a head start! Anyone else want to plead ‘guilty’?

Seedlings become leggy if they have insufficient light and so therefore go in search of it – makes sense doesn’t it? So sowing in January and February can lead to leggy seedlings in March.

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All is not lost, however. Just pot them on and make sure that you bury the stems up to the leaves – it may mean that you will need to reach for a deeper pot than you were expecting, but buried stems will form roots in time and you should get a sturdy plant in the long term.

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Tony Flanagan

Tony Flanagan is Kitchen Garden’s staff writer. He has been an enthusiastic grower of fruit and veg for many years. His favourite things to grow are peppers (sweet and chllli), tomatoes, herbs and beans. When he is not gardening or not writing about gardening, he is an avid Wolverhampton Wanderers fan. 07587038039 | [email protected]