Starting veggies from seed

It sounds like it should be easy. I mean, you poke a seed into a little potting soil, a little water and a grow light and BOOM, you have nice starts to put into your garden in a few weeks.

My experience hasn't been as favorable though. I started broccoli, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos and even tried some cabbage and collards. The problem is always the same...they get leggy and spindly in no time, no matter how close to a grow light I put them.

I seemed to get the most favorable results by just sprouting the little guys and giving them just a few days under a grow light and then getting them into the greenhouse under natural light ASAP.

I started putting my spindly broccoli plants out into the garden beginning in mid-February. I planted several of them like you would a leggy tomato, that is, by setting the plants fairly deeply in to the ground partially burying the stem. Seems to have worked OK. I did lose a few plants, but I am not sure if it was because of that or other reasons - like the 50mph winds we seem to be getting more frequently, first from the south for a day then from the north for a day.

I have just set out my eggplants, peppers and tomatillos. They actually came out pretty well. I did get them into the greenhouse pretty soon after germination and kept them close to the heater during the cold spells. The tomatillos still got pretty leggy, and I am assuming that they can be buried to the first set of leaves like a tomato...that is how they got planted anyway. This is the first year we have tried growing tomatillos and are looking forward to the first ripening.