Curled leaves with purple underside, plus yellowing?

[hiker_]

First time starting from seed here folks...

All of my 2-week-old seedlings seem unhappy. I do the whole "pet them" thing and they are a little limper than before. Not like fainted or anything, just a little limper and drooping a little.

The occasional leaf is curled (up, not down), especially where they are touching each other. And the undersides of these leaves are turning purple. Again, it's especially the curled leaves. But it's also happening in many areas on the oldest seedling (different cultivar, came up a day before the others).

Yesterday I watered the oldest seedling with "Park Success," 20-20-20 for seedlings, and I mixed the "for small seedlings" amount (1/4 teaspoon per gallon). It seemed to perk up, so I thought I wasn't feeding them enough. I watered them all with it today. Not sure if they liked that or not. (Photos below.)

I started some peppers at the same time and treated them in basically the same way. Their leaves are pretty yellow, especially the new true leaves. That's another reason I thought the problem might be not enough fertilizer.

I've been worrying because every day when I check them they're still pretty wet, so I don't water them any more, so then they don't get any more fertilizer, but I also don't want them to be too wet...etc.

Or is the basement too cold for them? (I'm estimating it's about 65F.)

They're in "container mix" of "sphagnum peat, perlite, vermiculite and limestone"--no fertilizer in it. They're under two shop lights with one warm and one cool bulb each. You can see the bottom edge of the lights in the photos below.

This is the one that's worst affected. First photo day (and not a good photo, it's out of focus, but you can kinda see the curled leaf in the middle), second photo half an hour before the light goes off (and 6 hours after I fed them):

DaytimeCloseup.jpg
EveningCloseup.jpg

Tomatoes on the left, oldest tomato + peppers on the right (again, first photo day, second photo half an hour before the light goes off):

Daytime.jpg
Evening.jpg

They are just...drooping now in a way they didn't before. You can see it in the photos, how they are kind of..."swaybacked." I'm not talking about the leaning, I'm talking about the bends in the stems, as if they were having trouble holding themselves up. And again, they feel...softer than before.

Any thoughts on what I should do? Or should I just stop worrying already?

[KarenO]

Hello,

They dont look too happy as you say. I think it's s combination problem of too wet, too cool and not enough light. Any chance you can bring them up where it's Warner, set your lights up in front of a window and begin introducing them slowly to real sunlight outdoors? I would separate them and pot them up to the first set of true leaves in 4" pots and lay off the fertilizer until they start growing for you.
Welcome to TV, let us know how it goes, best of luck with your garden
KarenO

[hiker_]

Thanks, Karen!

I don't have any way to set my lights up in front of a window. They're on chains hanging from the basement ceiling. (I just lowered them from 1.5" above the tallest seedling to 0.5" above.)

I do have a cold frame on my south-facing deck. (It automatically opens and closes. It has opened itself right now.) Would they be better off in there? Maybe for short periods of time at least?

Right now, today, it's 65 out. But it's supposed to cool down again (50s day, high 30s night). I'll put them in there for now (it's clearly warm in there now), but if/when it closes itself or gets dark, I'll bring them back in. Today.

But what about tomorrow and the rest of the week, when it's supposed to be colder?

[KarenO]

You can gradually introduce them to outdoor light in your cold frame on nice days.
KarenO

[hiker_]

Thanks! Well, they had three hours of afternoon sun today anyway!

I'll pot them up as soon as I can find a good drier mix to use. On my other thread (in the Town Hall) JamesL suggested Pro-Mix BX, but I wasn't sure how to find it / tell it apart from other Pro-Mixes that might be too wet.

A store near me has a lot of Espoma stuff (such as Tomato-Tone), so in case they have it, is "Espoma Organic Seed Starter" the right kind of thing? (This.) It says it has: "Sphagnum peat moss, peat humus, perlite, and is enhanced with Myco-tone, a blend of mycorrhizae." Or "Espoma Organic Potting Mix," which Park says has "sphagnum peat moss, peat humus, perlite, earthworm castings, and Myco-tone"? James was saying not to use anything with fertilizer already in it, and the Espoma Potting Mix does have earthworm castings, so is the "Seed Starter" better? (I saw a review of it that said it was really more like potting soil.)

[Al@NC]

Hiker, I've seen lot of tomatoville members rave about Espoma products and I'm using Tomato tone myself this year. Just an observation, your germination rate there looks great (if you planted one seed per pod) and the seedlings have shown growth without disease so I would say that your seed starting mix is a success!

Generally speaking, your plants are "leggy" due to not getting the light/sun they desire and they are purplish due to being at colder temps than they like (even though some varieties are just purple). So anything you can do to keep them warmer and with more light/sun should help them...

Hope this helps.

Oh, you can pay a lot of money for high quality seed starting mix, but if your just a casual gardener and planting less than a hundred or so plants then I wouldn't worry about spending too much on starter mix (my 2 cents).

[sdzejachok]

Too wet, too cold. Good idea lowering the light. Packaged potting mixes are usually fine. Forget the fertilizer.

[KarenO]

Any brand name good quality potting mix will be fine. I personally like pro mix, miracle grow and Schultz potting mixes. Buy what is available in your local garden centre and don't worry too much about it. Your plants look ok, they will respond to increased warmth and light. Keep moist, not wet. Bottom watering helps. Think of a nice piece of fresh cake. That is the moisture level you are going for. Or a well wrung out sponge.
Let us know how they do. Best wishes
KarenO

[TomNJ]

I had a purple leaf curling stem problem last year for the first time in 40 years. It was also the first time I switched to a six bulb light set up. Nothing I tried helped, but the plants did survive. They went into the garden very purple and recovered quickly. I am convinced my problem was too much light, or the warmth from six bulbs just an inch above the plants.

The same problem began this year and I raised the light fixtures up to about 4" above the plants and they are doing much better.

TomNJ/VA

[hiker_]

Thanks, everyone!

Alan, turns out it's actually Fafard Seed Starting Mix. What my adviser had left over from last year. She stored it sealed, and then I poured boiling water in it before using it. And, yes, 13/14 of the tomatoes I started in it came up, as well as all 10 of the "packed for 2015" pepper seeds and 3/6 of the pepper seeds someone gave me from 2013 (those are only just starting to come up now). So it does seem to have done pretty well! Thanks for pointing that out and cheering me up!

I'm out of Fafard now. I'm going to pot them up into the container mix. It's my neighbor's mix: 2 parts sphagnum peat, 1 part vermiculite, 1 part perlite, 1 cup limestone added per cubic foot. *No* fertilizer, not even in the perlite (unlike Miracle-Gro perlite).

After reading more old posts, I want to clarify that compared to standard "blue stuff," the Park Success fertilizer I've been using is 1/12 strength, not 1/4 strength. Standard "blue stuff" seems to say to use 1 tablespoon per gallon, so since 1 teaspoon is 1/3 of a tablespoon, I guess that makes my 1/4 teaspoon per gallon 1/4 of 1/3, or 1/12 strength.

My adviser says she uses this 1/12 strength fertilizer from the minute she *plants* her tomato seeds, and that I'm being too *stingy* with the fertilizer! But, she uses Park Starts / Jiffy Pots. (But mine also always seemed to get a mini-growth-spurt after getting their tiny "feeding.")

I haven't watered them (with or without fertilizer) since my first post, since they've still been wet. Since the runner beans I started in the container mix stayed wet in the cold frame for 5 days before they needed watering again (I'm talking dry like yucky dry cake, not moist like good cake ), I'm planning to add Bio-Tone and perlite to my container mix before potting up. Poor man's Pro-Mix! I'll put half as much Bio-Tone as it says, though, and lay off the Park Success.

Tom, I was using old bulbs. Maybe my problem is a combo of less light + more heat from the old, low bulbs? I gave half my lights new bulbs and moved the ones with new bulbs up 2", we'll see what happens there.

Today I took the soil-encrusted 4" pots someone gave me and washed them in hot soapy water, then again in vinegar water, then rinsed thoroughly. (I know bleach would be better, but my family and I have breathing problems and we've had to give up using bleach. So vinegar will have to do for killing diseases.) Will pot up in the morning.

Thanks again everyone!

[Mike723]

Originally Posted by TomNJ

I had a purple leaf curling stem problem last year for the first time in 40 years. It was also the first time I switched to a six bulb light set up. Nothing I tried helped, but the plants did survive. They went into the garden very purple and recovered quickly. I am convinced my problem was too much light, or the warmth from six bulbs just an inch above the plants.

The same problem began this year and I raised the light fixtures up to about 4" above the plants and they are doing much better.

TomNJ/VA

Hi Tom,

Thanks for this, it will be a big help to me! This year for the first time in a long while I'm having the same curling issues with no explanation besides my new 6-bulb t-8 setup.. The other plants love them but the tomatoes just aren't happy.. I'm only about 2" up; I'll raise them up some more to see if that does the trick.

[Mike723]

Originally Posted by hiker_

Today I took the soil-encrusted 4" pots someone gave me and washed them in hot soapy water, then again in vinegar water, then rinsed thoroughly. (I know bleach would be better, but my family and I have breathing problems and we've had to give up using bleach. So vinegar will have to do for killing diseases.) Will pot up in the morning.
Thanks again everyone!

Hiker,
You can also use 4% peroxide and some hot water to clean your pots.. I personally HATE the smell of vinegar haha

[hiker_]

Thanks, Mike, maybe I'll try that with the next set.

Today I potted them up as best I could. I didn't have as many tall pots as I would have liked, so I couldn't pot them as deep as I wanted, but:

Evening after potting up.jpg
Right after potting up.jpg

(I decided to treat each of the two sets of twins as a single plant, at least for now.)

When I was potting them up, a couple of them had a different smell. Not the usual spicy, "I am a tomato and you disturbed me" smell--a different, less pleasant, "nail polish remover" type of smell. The roots still looked white, though. They weren't all one cultivar--it was two Legends and two Stupices.

I examined the weird-smelling ones closely and the Stupices seemed to have a little bit of leaf edema. I really hope they were just too wet.

Anyone recognize that smell?

Thanks again everyone.

[KarenO]

There is no way, in my opinion, that a seedling grown in a basement can be the victim of "too much light"
The light outdoors on a cloudy day would be a many times more lumens than the brightest fluorescent tubes could produce.
KarenO

[ginger2778]

I agree with Karen about the light.

I suggest that you do divide the doubles because it will stunt their growth otherwise, and now, before they flower, is their most prime pure growth time, to take advantage of.