2 CFl's overnight for seedings

Hey everyone. New member here and I'm attempting my first outdoor grow this season. I currently have 17 seedlings that are about 2 and a half weeks old. I started the seedlings in jiffy pellets and transplanted them into beer cups soon after. Initially I was growing the seedlings in a south facing window sill during the day and under 2 desk lamps at night using 2 mini 13w cfl with soft white spectrum. Had no idea I was using the wrong spectrum for a few weeks. The seedlings were quite stretched looking at first before the leaves started to show up.

At first the seedlings had about a 3-4"gap between the soil and the cotyledon leaves... I transplanted them to beer cups and buried them up to the cotyledon leaves and they then stretched once again about 3" or so before the true leaves started showing up.

I have since gone and bought 2 26w CFL daylight bulbs that I put the plants under over night and I try to either set the plants outside for the day or keep them in my window sill to catch the sun for the day.

From my understanding I would need a lot more CFLs to grow this way, but since I am eventually transplanting these 17 to the outdoors, are my 2 bulbs enough just for over night use? Are they really getting anything out of the 2 CFL's or merely just keeping them from the dark? Im pushing 3 weeks from seed and they are all just on their 2nd set of true leaves at the moment with signs of the 3rd set coming.. Spacing between 1st and 2nd set of leaves is roughly 1/8" - 1/4" at worst on all plants. I think the natural light and the new CFLs are limiting the stretching. Also, I have the plants in 2 groups, side by side, evenly huddled around the 2 bulbs. Bulbs are almost touching the tops of the plants. Slow growing but really healthy looking. Trying to use natural light as much as possible. THanks

Well I know that you ppl like pics, so I've added a few that I just took. Again, you can see that my seedlings are very tall (stretched) for their age and as well just have a couple of leaf sets. I am well aware that you couldn't grow plants with just 2 bulbs like I have.. but these plants are being planted in an outdoor plot when they are big enough. I have searched images for seedling sizes based on how many weeks old they are and have seen pics of plants 3 weeks old that look like big bushes compared to mine. I believe the stretching was almost exclusively from using the soft white bulbs for 2 weeks during the nights. Just wanting to know if the CFL's overnight are doing anything for my plants or simply just keeping them from being in the dark? I'd normally transplant the seedlings again and bury them a lot deeper, but I really can't do that because it would make them to hard to transport when the time comes for them to be planted outside.

it helps to the keep them from budding. cause if u left them outside they would prob start budding sometime soon. but u deff need more than just 1 daylight cfl. i have 12 for 6 plants and a couple clones. even if ur just using that cfl to keep them in the light all day u still wanna have more than that cause as they grow u not gonna have enuf light to cover the area that those plants are sitting in.

Thx for the response. Basically, Im using the 2 light sockets in my bedroom closet. There are 8 plants around one 26w cfl and 9 plants around the other. While I was pretty sure the 2 lights wouldn't really increase the growth of the plants by much or at all, the small amount of light that theydo throw is kind of in line with the early morning/early evening natural sun levels that they are going into/coming out of each day when I take them outside and bring them in. So I guess you answered my question. THe lights are essentially not enough for the plants to grow in, but enough to keep them from flowering. I know ppl in my area usually plant outside around MaY 24 weekend, so is it common for plants started indoors to immediately start to flower when transplanted to their grow site because of the light cycle chance? We are currently getting about 14.5hrs of light a day at the moment.. hopefully by the timeI plant outside the plants go into veg mode and grow for at least a while before trying to flower..

pretty much. once u put them outside they'll end up gettin that timeframe that will cause them to flower pretty quickly. but ya that also depends on the time of year. cus remember when ur growin inside with daylight bulbs, runnin 18+ hours a day. ur mimicing the long days of summer. and then when fall hits which is really id say the ideal time to move plants outside, ur gettin those shorter days with cooler weather and then they will really take off on flowering. thats what my friend and i have been doing. i just built my setup like 2 or 3 weeks ago but hes been using an aerogarden at his place for awhile and weve just been cloning them and then when they are ready taking them out to our other friends property so that we dont have to flower them inside and have to deal with the smell as well as the correct lights and everything u need to flower inside. saves us money. and decreases the chance of me gettin caught lol.


i understand what ur saying tho bout the amount of light ur moving the plants back and forth in....but imo ud prob b better off just gettin a bunch of cfls for the plants to just leave them inside and then move them outside if its a great sunny day with a good temp. otherwise id just leave them inside. but its up 2 u.