i made the mistake of germinating 5 seeds in one 10" pot. i had bad luck germinating in paper towel and didn't count on my luck improving. but it did. all 5 germinated and are now growing(well, 1 is kinda looking sickly). 3 of the 5 have their 1st set of leaves. 1 just has the cotyledon. i'd like to transplant them to smaller pots but i don't want to kill them if it is too early to transplant. i know i pulled a stupid. feel free to berate me. but please give me some feedback as well. thanks...
Im not an expert. I just want to put in my 2 cents.... I would transplant.... I would scoop the plant out as to not disturb the rooting.
It is actually probably about the perfect time to fix this mistake so don't despair. If you wait much longer the roots will tangle around one another and you could do a lot of damage to the plant. Start with the sickly one (as the guinea pig) and use a small knife, a butterknife will do, and cut a small square around the plant where you think think is beyond the root system. Have a larger container with new soil ready and a small hole cleared/dug ready in the new soil to drop the plant into. Then gently, and I mean gently, pry and work the plant/square that you cut out of the original pot. Try to get down at least 5 inches or so if you can. Then just put into the new pot, adjust to the height you want in new pot, and add some soil, water it generously, but don't flood it. If you are happy with how it turned out, repeat for the others. These plants, and most plants in general are pretty resilient and do well with transplanting at earlier stages. There are probably a number of other ways to do this, but this is just one. Main thing here is don't add nutes for a few weeks and make sure you use an appropriate soil to transplant into. After transplanting water generously every few days but be sure not to overwater. The roots need oxygen to recover and grow into the new soil. Too much water will stunt them and potentially kill the plants while they are weakened. Good luck and let us know how they turn out.
To echo what KayaKush said - Based on the original post these plants sounded like they were out of the seedling stage and most had their first set of leaves and some level of established growth. If that is not the case, I would wait a little longer but otherwise I would do it now.
thanks for the advice. the 3 healthiest plants have the cotyledon plus the first set of leaves. the soil i am using is pretty loose(roots organics out of the bag). my guess is that the roots don't have a lot going on since i planted the seeds directly in the soil on the 17th. i was away but when i looked on the 22nd, all 5 had sprouted and i removed the celophane i had covering the pot. so they are pretty young. i like the idea of using the sickly one as a guinea pig. i am going out of the country for a couple of weeks in a few days(my timing has always been impeccably crappy). i have my sons prepped to watch the little squirts but i don't know if i want them transplanting them while i am away. i am going to have to make a decision saturday. this is my first go at this since i was a teenager back in the 80's so i know i am a train wreck. i am trying to be as careful and methodical as possible recording temps, rh, ph etc so i don't continue to be a wreck.
my ocd combined with lack of patience is going to be the death of me. i bit the bullet and transplanted all 5 this morning. there was no root ball. i dug out about a small handful of soil around the stem and placed the plant and soil in some fresh soil in some improvised containers since i am pressed for time. i cut the tops off some soda cans and drilled 6 drainage holes in the bottoms. keeping my fingers crossed...
You should be fine. Soda cans or soda bottles? Both of those containers are pretty small so you will need to transplant to another container again soon, but a soda bottle should be ok for 2 weeks or so. A soda can is too small though. They will be root bound fairly quickly.
It wasnt a bad ocd move. Roots can form ultra quick and the worst thing in that case is all your roots cominglin and making a mess that would traumatize your plants on weening them apart. As for the cut pop cans I would ditch those asap, get some 5 or 10 gallon planters and get them all set up for the long haul now. Save you from upgrading containers and possible root damage down the road. If you can afford it air pruning pots have worked great for me when using soil.
You will be fine in the cans for a few weeks. Water to run off the day before transplanting, then when ready to transplant cut the cans off, being careful not to disturb the rootball too much when transplanting to the larger container. PW
thanks again. i checked on them and watered them this morning. they look good. one is a bit spindly and the fan made it kind of lay down. no stem damage that i can see. i gently propped it up with some bamboo skewers i have so it can still move but wont be laying in the soil. i have 3 gallon felt pots ready for the girls(i hope) but did not want to go too big too quickly as i have read that you generally don't want to give the plant too much space. thinking about that though now. if a plant grows outside, it has a nearly infinite 'pot' to grow in... my concern about the cans was aluminum leaching. i thought the size might be ok for a couple of weeks as i have seen pics of plants maybe 6 inches tall in peat that had less volume than my cans. the plant that was doing lousy now looks like it is getting some leaves. one has relatively large cotyledons but tiny leaves. now that one is my special case.
about 18 hours post-transplant. so far no casualties. for those playing along at home, the players are DNA Genetics LA Confidential, (lower left and clockwise from there),Green House Seeds Green Thai, Reserva Privada Silver LA, Reserva Privada OG Kush #18, and DNA Genetics Seeds Stacked Kush. the thai seeds i paid for and they looked pretty healthy(dark brown with some mottling, not huge but avaerage in size). the rest of them were promotional seeds from the attitude. they looked kind of weak and were light in color. all 5 germinated in soil that i kept on a heating pad in my tent with a light cycle of 18/6. they germinated and were peeking out of the soil in only a few days. i am using roots organics soil. and keeping the temp around 75-79 deg f and keeping the rh 40 to 50. they are now on 24 hour lights. i have 4 hi output 4 ft t5 bulbs (i think they are 10k). my tent is about 4x2x2. i am keeping them about 6" from the lights. i also have a couple of 10 year old poinsettas, a pot of catnip, a hibiscus and another house plant in the tent since there is a nice environment in there and i think they help with the humidity. i have this set up in my basement and it is cool and dry down there at this time but the tent is toasty and humid. one concern i have is i can't run the exhaust fan right now because it would get too cold. i will have to be on the look out for mold i think.