I See Your True Colours

I was chatting with a few Gardeners, in discord, recently, and realized, while we all love Gardening, we love it for our OWN reasons! My Peppers, above, are now onto their second and even some, their Third True leaves. Fertilizer isn't needed, when you first plant seeds. Only air and water. The seeds themselves will germinate if air and water are available.

BUT, once the plants shoot out their first and second True leaves, the tiny seedlings need nutrients. Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potassium... and a dozen other trace elements at some point, sooner than later.

Above: Some of My Cucumber are now producing their 1st or 2nd True leaves.

When your seeds first germinate, the Seed leaves, called Cotyledons, are still part of the seed. The seedlings will drop those leaves at some point during development, while True leaves will be a part of the plant for some time to come.

Above: Onion under the Full spectrum LED Tube lights.
Below: White LED Light

Above: Just the BLUE LED lights.
Below: Just the Red LED Light

Above: Full White LED lights.

Once the Plants germinate, Seedlings need nutrients, water, air, heat, and of course, LIGHT! In the TOP White LED light a few images above, you can see the bare shelf, I have my Heat Mats, that are under the Seed Cell Trays. In the image directly above, you can see some wood where I have raised the shelf level, to get the SEED tray closer to the light.

It is often said seedlings need INTENSE Light, and 18 hours of it. I try and get the little seedlings as much light for 18 hours a day, even boosting them up a bit, to get closer to the LED Light. On average, my lights are 5200ºK (That's the colour temperature of my light). The sun is somewhere around 5000-5200ºK. Cloudy days it may drop to below 4000ºK
I also try to keep the lumens up, as much as possible by using more fixtures per shelf.

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Above: Celery under the Full spectrum LED Tube lights.
Below: Tomato under the White LED Light. I turn off the BLue and Red LED for photos.

What's YOUR gardening plan this next week? Leave me a comment know, below...