Re: [CH] Transplanting Question...
danceswithcarp (dcombs@bloomington.in.us)
Thu, 13 May 1999 18:44:25 -0500 (EST)
On Thu, 13 May 1999, David Hammond wrote:
> My 3 month old plants are just about ready to be moved to
> the garden. Several, in spite of my efforts to provide adequate lighting,
> have gotten rather leggy. My question, regarding conflicting options:
> How deep should young chiles be transplanted? One option is they can be
> planted deep, like tomatoes, and will sprout roots along the buried stem.
> The conflicting option: If buried deep, they stems will NOT sprout roots,
> but instead, develop fungus and rot.
The key to the plant is the root ball. If you plant deep you won't develop
much more root off of the stem, if any at all, unless you use a rooting
hormone, and if you've got good root development you don't need to go
deep.
A few years back we had a very wet spring and I had a couple hundred
seedlings stretch out under the grow lamps and fall over. They had
incredibly long, spindly stems. I finally got them in the ground and used
shiskabob sticks to prop them up until they hardened off. I put no more
of the stem in the ground than I usually do and ended up with fine healthy
plants. It just took some crutches.
And we all need our crutches.
[hiccup]
carp