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A shop light stops leggy seedlings

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seedling cell

1Why it happens

A leggy seedling — tall, thin, weak-stemmed — is a plant stretching toward whatever light it can find. Even a bright-looking window rarely delivers enough hours of strong light for a vegetable seedling, so the stem elongates chasing it instead of building a sturdy base.

2The actual fix

A simple fluorescent or LED shop light, hung just a few inches above the seedling tops, on an automatic timer for 16 hours a day (18 is the practical ceiling). As the seedlings grow taller, the light moves up to stay close — close light is what keeps the stem short and thick instead of stretched.

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3The other two mistakes that mimic bad light

Garden soil is too dense for a seed tray — it holds water badly and starves roots of air, which shows up as the same falling-over, weak-stem look as poor light. A bagged seed-starting mix and a finger test for moisture (damp like a wrung-out sponge, never soaking) heads off both damping-off fungus and drought stress before either one gets blamed on the light.

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4What goes wrong

Starting seeds too early is its own trap: the seedling outgrows its small pot before it's warm enough to go outside, and every extra week indoors under marginal light adds to the legginess. Check the seed packet's outdoor planting date and count backward from there, not from how excited you are to start.

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