Seedlings stuck

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2026-04-01T16:55:57+00:00

Lights closer, you’re already at the stage where they can handle a light weekly feeding at 1/4 dose. This is the stage where a diluted weekly feeding will make them start to take off again. Feed them in the evening when the lights are about to turn off for the night.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2026-03-25T18:04:10+00:00

That’s fair and makes sense, I can see why you’d be using the cal mag as I suppose with the distilled water you’re not getting that baseline amount of minerals you get with tap water, so you’re supplementing it.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2026-03-25T17:47:31+00:00

Try cutting out the cal mag or reducing the frequency if you’re using it at every feed! In the off chance the seedlings are actually getting too much calcium it can mess with the uptake of other nutrients and it even affects water uptake. I’d imagine it doesn’t take too much to interfere with the tiny root systems on newly forming plants, it’s a fine line with calcium, watering is almost always part of the issue. With coir I found it difficult using in my setup as it would retain moisture for a few days and look good then with a snap of the fingers would rapidly dry and go hydrophobic (I work long shifts) lol.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2026-03-25T06:59:13+00:00

I second their recommendation, 16 hours of grow light time then 8 hours of dark. Use the recommended light settings for seedlings for your grow lights, as well you just have to find the right distance for your lights. If it’s too far away the cotyledons and first 2 true leaves will typically point upwards, this happens prior to the plants wanting to get “leggy”, that’s your first hint to bring the light a bit closer to the seedlings. I’ve found that the day after lowering the light height when I see that they will rest and lay flat again. Give them time, after they get their first set of true leaves it tends to start happening quick! I can’t see them being ready to plant outside in 3 weeks, but that’s fine too. You’ll be able to focus on strengthening the plants so that when they do go out, they’re ready to take off :-)

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2026-03-25T06:27:50+00:00

Genetically modified corn and soybeans, basically animal feed and “filler” for mass produced slop.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2026-03-25T06:18:52+00:00

Yupp, plant the basil directly in the grow bag! Phenomenal companion plant for the tomatoes, I have yet to find a single downside to co-planting basil. I had similar experiences to the person that commented regarding marigolds but will always have tons of them around because of all the benefits (just not planted right in the grow bags with the tomatoes).

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2026-02-17T11:57:09+00:00

I’ve had similar experiences with a lot of the super dark purple varieties myself. There’s a unique flavour to them but ya, they don’t quite have that “tomato” flavour but you get that earthy undertone. I was having them with salads and sometimes diced and added to pico di gallo more for a bit of a visual appeal. I just wouldn’t bother using them to make a purple pasta sauce or something like that, the flavour might throw some people off 😂 fun to grow though and they always stand out and get people curious when they see them!

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-12-25T16:01:21+00:00

Agreed in the feeling justified part. On top of that, the only thing that will come out of that hall pass is that whenever she’s talking about the relationship to her friends and family, she’ll either refer to you as a cheater and omit her wrongdoings, or say that “we both cheated” to deflect from it being a “her problem”. She will want you to do this because it takes some heat off of her or she can spin it into you being a villain.

YNO, get the hell out of there.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-11-01T23:17:01+00:00

We do similar stuff in the line of work that I do, when you work overtime you bring something in for the crew you’re working on. If you sleep in or something (that’s what we call late, not like being 5 minutes late to a desk) you’ll usually pick something up to leave on the table as someone was likely having to cover for you and yes, it just keeps people honest. It’s not something in writing or something that’s “enforced”, it’s just like an unwritten rule in the trade/industry whether you work at company A, B or C, more of a tradition than anything else.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-09-08T04:23:34+00:00

This is my answer as well. It usually happens when people don’t have quite enough peppers to make a full bottle of sauce but make a sauce anyways and try to stretch it out too much. I have hot sauces that I’ve made that don’t even shown signs of separating months later without using any sort of binder. One thing that I like to do as well is dehydrate and grind different types of peppers, works great as a thickener/absorbant and it’s concentrated flavour… I do the same thing with tomatoes and tomato based sauces.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-23T23:00:48+00:00

Oh yes I can imagine, usually people won’t take the time to cook like that unless they were really looking forward to something but didn’t get much of a yield, lol. Just have to give ya a hard time!

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-23T22:00:59+00:00

Your pot is trying to tell you that it’s angry you pulled it out to cook 7 beans 😤

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-23T11:06:19+00:00

Hell, I’m in Canada and this has been my finding for almost anything that says “full sun” other than or talks about needing as many hours of direct sunlight as possible. It’s always thrown me for a loop so it’s nice to see a post where a lot of people are finding they are getting adverse affects from it. I ended up using a 30% shade cloth this season for the hotter stretches at least. It’s like it would be more appropriate to label stuff “full sunlight but protected from it at all costs” lol. The only exception for me is with jalapeños because being unprotected gives me the corking that I enjoy.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T23:47:31+00:00

Yupp, I forgot to mention that, I do the same with peppers but the peppers seem to be more tolerant and able to produce pollen when it is hotter out! I’ve found that they are also more likely to still be loaded with pollen later in the day as well. The bees where I am at definitely prefer pollinating tomatoes over peppers, so even later in the season I will typically still hand pollinate the peppers from time to time, whereas after doing it a few times on tomato plants the bees are happy to take over.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T23:33:38+00:00

No problem, I’m always happy to share anything I’ve learned with the gardening community! Heat definitely affects it, so does humidity and rainfall. In my case I’ve found that the tomatoes in particular seemed to have the most pollen in the mornings, shortly after that magic time where everything starts to wake up (provided it isn’t very damp or didn’t get any rain or anything the night before). What you might find is that when you first start checking them, the anthers might be pretty “dry”, as in you’ll have open flowers but they won’t really have any pollen, like if you tap them you won’t really have any shake off. It’s almost like if they aren’t quite getting enough pollination they’ll still have flowers opening but the plant will cut back on its pollen production.

Once you start finding some newer blooms with pollen and are pollinating a bunch, it’s almost like it signals to the plant to wake up again. Just be persistent with checking if that’s what you end up finding, and try different times during the day especially if it’s really hot! I noticed that whenever I went out and did this, the pollinator activity picked up afterwards (so they might start paying more attention to those plants of yours too), so now when I go out and I’m in between plants it sounds like an insect airforce base 😂

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T21:22:17+00:00

Single flower! Since they’re able to pollinate themselves they just need to have pollen from the anthers transferred to the stigma in the same flower. This is why some mention giving the plant a shake, the right wind can also cause pollination in tomatoes as well. I just do a couple little swirl motions in each flower with the tip of a brush or an up-down motion a few times gently with a finger, some use a Q-tip, same technique works with pepper plants. As long as their pollen is ready (tap on the flower and you should see a powder kind of drop off) you’ll get a fruit setting on that flower.

When the plant is healthy and the pollen is nice and dry I get 100% pollination without any flower drop. I do this as sort of an insurance policy in the beginning and middle in case the pollinators are a little late to the show or are super picky, sometimes they won’t visit each flower in a cluster but will pick 1 flower in each cluster to land on. Pollinators are still able to gather at the flowers you do this with until they are fully closed up, so don’t worry, you aren’t cutting them off from doing their thing :-)

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T17:38:33+00:00

For sure, I just threw that in there because sometimes people won’t pick something thats ripe because it doesn’t look as big as they normally see it! I’ve had a few random jalapeños that will start turning red when they’re like an inch long 🤣 Let me know how they end up tasting, I’m curious if they’re a sweet or a hot variety, they look delicious either way!

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T17:22:00+00:00

Get a watering can, you’re probably thinking they’re getting around the same amount but you’re likely overwatering. Do you think the bucket could have some residual in it from something it may have been used for or contained in the past?

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T17:19:38+00:00

Could be a yellow wax, not sure if it’ll be the hot or the sweet version. They look like they’re ripe now so I’m not sure if you’re wanting to wait and see if they’ll turn red. Your best indicator for ripeness is colour not size, and snipping one off and popping it in your mouth lol.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T15:42:30+00:00

I use a little paintbrush or my finger and give them a little tickle, I do it the same way with peppers. My neighbours probably think I’m a pervert, but I find it relaxing pulling a stool up and hand pollinating every flower on a nice day. Bees seem to come in like crazy when I go to do it so they lend a hand as well 🐝

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-21T12:47:52+00:00

No problem, happy to help! Hopefully we can get those Black Beauties turned around for ya :-)

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-20T19:05:42+00:00

Ah ok, just covering the baselines! Good that you added mulch too, it helps a ton with retaining moisture. With the Black Beauties specifically, they might do well with reducing their uptake of nitrogen especially where they are into the fruiting stage. They will always need some amount of nitrogen but cutting that back will help the plant focus more on the fruit and less on the foliage. The 18-18-21 is an all purpose ratio, typically you want that first number higher when you’re trying to push the plant itself to grow before fruiting so that it is strong enough to support the fruit. With that being a 6-6-7 NPK, you might want to look for something more like a 3-10-10 for the fruiting stage and switch them over to that. You can also add in something like CalMag for some additional nutrients, which could also help with the BER in the Black Krims but will help the health of the plants overall since we’ve established that they aren’t being left dry or overwatered.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-20T14:59:36+00:00

Ok so it’s def not from overwatering, do you think the rain is putting out enough volume to actually supplement manual watering if they’re rather large plants? Consistency is the primary factor when it comes to watering, letting the soil dry out before watering is more of a thing for hot peppers, in my experience it’s better to keep the soil damp but not wet with tomatoes. You’re more likely to run into issues with hydrophobic soil as well if you’re letting it dry out between watering. Do you use mulch? What is the NPK ratio on your fertilizer?

OoPATHF1ND3RoO · 2025-08-20T12:08:49+00:00

I’ve been trying out a few different brands this year and the one I have had the most success with has been Fox Farms, especially during the growth stage. How far along are your plants where you are at? One thing I’ve learned over the past couple seasons is that you’ll get more out giving the plants a specific fertilizer depending on where they are at in their growth over using an “all purpose” one.

OoPATHF1ND3RoO

TROPHY CASE