Hi, I am in Ontario in a suburb of Toronto. I have successfully grown some spruce seedlings from my vacation property near Peterborough in an aquarium in peat pots with magic grow starter soil. I now realise (after reading this great site) that I should have used cactus soil, and provided more air circulation. They are about 3 cm tall right now and nice and green, I have them on 8 hours of light and water them lightly about 3 times a week. My questions are: how much light, how close should the lights be, how big a pot, when can I fertilize them a bit, and when should I get them outside (I have also built a see through plastic covered box on my deck for the spring time seedlings). We have 2-3 months of snow still to get through, but I want to know how to keep these seedlings healthy until they are ready for outside. I can provide pictures if there is anyone with some advice for me!?
your light schedule and watering might not be appropriate. Consider that a seedling would normally sprout in the spring, daylight would be getting longer with each day towards summer. Depending on the species it might tolerate more rather than less watering but 3 times a week sounds a bit much, you are better off to water less often and provide more volume at the watering time.
I doubt the cactus soil would have been a critical point. Commercial growers produce numbers of all different kinds of plants using a small number of different mixes. Sometimes there is a reason to use a special mix for a particular kind of plant, most others (such as spruce trees) would not be considered particularly fussy. Kinds like cactus get a coarser, freer draining mix than usual because they are unusually prone to rotting. Spruces do not have this problem.
