A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Help for Tomatoe seedlings

It will soon be time to start my tomatoe seeds indoors but I remember last year i had trouble with the seedlings becoming too tall and stringy.I am wondering if my plants are too close to the plant light or maybe too far away?Can anyone help so I don't make the same mistake this year.

Put them closer to the light, i dont use lights myself, i always put them on a window sill with a reflector behind them.
good luck...

I use lights and they should be no farther away from the lights then 2 inches...A Lot of mine will have leaves touching the lights without any harm...so they need to be very close to the light to keep them from becoming spindle. Let us know how your plants do we are always interested in how people come out growing things!

The light bulbs should be no further than a couple inches from the seedlings.

Thanx-will try to move them up closer.I thought maybe they were too close but I guess not.Will report on how they do.

Linda,
Don't forget that you can re~plant/re~pot up a tomato plant at any level along it's lanky stems..
Tomato plant stems have the ability to re~root along the entire stem..
After it's matured a bit, and ready to re~pot..
pull it out of the container by one leave..
**If the leaf rips off, no big deal, the plant can re~grow another leaf... BUT DO NOT HANDLE IT BY THE SPINDLEY STEM, if you crush the stem by touching it, it'll dye**

And just re~pot almost up to the base of the last set of leaves.. or if it's gotten a bunch of
leaves, pinch one or two sets off, then re~pot up to the last set of leaves..

Awesome thanx for the advice.I might even try not using the lights this year too.