Indoor Winter Tomato Project

[z_willus_d]

Blackstar from lighthouse was one of the LED lights I looked at very closely. It should be good.

[lakelady]

That's great John! I've been giving seedlings away to friends encouraging them to get even a little grow lamp and put them in a southern exposure window so people can have a little winter fun when it's cold, snowy, and dark outside!

I definately started too many seedlings, but I wasn't sure how well any of them would germinate so I kinda overdid it

I'll take more pics this weekend as I'm moving furniture haha...my mom gave me an old table she didn't want anymore that is about the height of my bay window so I can put more plants there. Now I'm just waiting for the leaves to turn and fall so I get more full sun in that window, but I've got the growlights to supplement.

With regards to those LED lights, there is so much information out there, it's hard to understand (for me at least , I'm not an engineer or techie)...not sure if mine will be sufficient, but we'll see.

This morning i sold one of our cars to a really nice guy newly transplanted from Israel. We started talking about weather and plants as he had fresh produce all year there. He hasn't experienced a northeast winter yet ... I told him about my tomato project and he has grown herbs indoors. When he comes to pickup the car next week, he's going to be gifted with a dwarf tomato plant Welcome to America!

[z_willus_d]

Well, my New Dwarf seedlings are on their way. I've had good growth, and they are coming in strong and leafy. That's the good. The bad is that about week after the first true leaves showed on the first sproutling, one of the two leaves turned an obvious yellow color. Since, just about all the rest of the true leaves are following suite. I'm at a loss to explain why.

Here's what I know. When the first yellow leaf appeared, I wasn't watering the plants much, just a little spray from the water bottle a couple times a day. I had gotten in the habit of placing the tray on top of my LED light in the morning when the Eastern light flows through the nearby window, and that light reflects off the mylar and perhaps it was creating some hot spots...perhaps. But since then, all the other sprouts are showing the same yellowing after a few days open. I thought it might be for lack of nutrients, so I added a top layer of worm-castings and later (yesterday) E.B. Stone Cottonseed Meal (6-2-1). I also started watering more starting about five days ago. I'm now seeing some evidence of mold or some such, so I've just today sprayed with a copper (Bonide) solution with a cap full of H peroxide thrown in. BTW, my original plant medium was ProMix Fine Plug Grade.

Any ideas what the problem might be here? Over-watering ? Sun burn? Lack of nutrients? Too much fertilizer? The fungus/mold?

Thanks,
Naysen

[Tania]

yellow leaves are usually a first sign of overwatering. I'd let the soil dry off completely before watering again. Such small seedling usually do not need fertilizing yet.

[z_willus_d]

Thanks Tania, that was my guess for most likely candidate as well. I wasn't watering much at all for a while, but I noticed I couldn't get any of the 2nd batch of seeds to germinate (note the 2nd row in pic). So I gave the bed a good soaking and voila, I had germination on that 2nd batch. I guess, I should have just found a 2nd bed for the second batch of seeds (note, those were to replace half of the first batch that failed to germinate). I'll back off on watering and definitely show some restraint with the fertilizer. My experience is that worm castings are quite benign, but I can't speak for the cotton-seed.
Thanks,
Naysen

[lakelady]

Naysen,

My first thoughts are too much water, or the fertilizer. I don't fertilize mine until they get 2 full sets of "true" leaves, and then I keep it pretty weak until they have 4 sets of leaves. They just seem to sensitive as babies to a lot of nutrients. In fact, I transplanted one little one into a pot of a new potting mix....something with seaweed, compost etc...and that seedling is not doing well at all compared to the others where I used a mix of Fox Farms potting soil and additional perlite. I think its too much nutrients. keep in mind, that the cotyledons (those first leaves that you see) feed the plant until it grows a bit, so they get nutrition from those, so until they start to wither and die, there really isn't a need for addtional supplements (at least that's been my experience and I only took one semester of Botany in college, so I'm by no means an expert).

When spraying the plants to water, is it strictly H20? I learned the hard way of course, that bottom watering is best. Make sure you have lots of holes in the bottom of thecontainer, put it in a larger container with water. You will be amazed at how much water gets wicked up into the soil. To this day, I still think I don't water enough, but as long as the soil is "damp" I'm pretty good . The exception would be a plant that might really "like" wet "feet". I think there are some tomatoes out there like that.

So try bottom watering, keep leaves dry. Maybe in winter if you have heat on in the house, misting the plants is a good idea to increase humidity, but probably not yet. Good luck!

[z_willus_d]

Thanks for the advice. I'll stick to it in the future. So easy to forget yesterday's lessons.

[lakelady]

I am the queen of forgetting yesterday's lessons! I think giving them time to recover and a bit less water, and they'll be back on track again soon.

My own seedlings are older than yours and it still takes everything I've got NOT to overwater them or over fertilize them....I get so anxious to see them grow up .....

[dice]

Your plug mix likely holds water better than just "seed starting mix",
because the root space in plugs is so small.

Moisture meter: http://www.google.com/products/catal...ed=0CGwQ8wIwAA

(The Rapitest one with no chord and a rigid probe is under $10
at Ace Hardware and probably any similar store with garden products.
Note that the new model of those has a shorter probe, probably
shared with the model shown in the picture at the URL above.)

It is a relief not to be guessing on how moist is the seed-starting mix or
container mix when considering whether to water them (one
might want something with a longer probe for an in-ground bed).

[Catherine+two]

For many years I have taken a few cuttings from my cherry tomato plants (one red, one yellow) in August or September and rooted them. The best looking plants then went in my greenhouse window for the winter and the kids got "tomato vitamins" when ever a few were ripe. But they were never very prolific. Well, I didn't get around to taking any cuttings this fall, and now the cherries and all of the red/pink tomatoes have late blight, so I'm just letting them all finish up and that's it.

OTOH, my (mostly) Amber Colored are still going strong. The two petit plants spent most of the summer only 18 inches tall, covered in 3-oz fruits and new flowers. Now all of a sudden they have shot up another 6 inches with more flowers. The two taller plants grew to 3 feet slowly during the summer, but were also covered with fruit and new flowers the whole time, including now. Their old leaves are battered, of course, but the newer foliage is deep green (these plants were always darker green than any others in my garden) and healthy even as we head for October. So the smallest of these plants is going into my greenhouse window, and the other three are going to my stepdad's house.

My parents remodeled their house about 6 years ago, and my mom had a greenhouse room put in under the new kitchen extension. She used it to winter over plants and to start a few plants in the spring (or rather, I used it to start plants in the spring). But sadly she died of melanoma almost two years ago now. (Hey, everyone, put your sunlotion and hats on when you garden!) There are a few plants still struggling to survive in there, but mostly that room has been abandoned. But it's only a mile from my house, and we spend evenings and weekends with my step-dad regularly, so I could put my surviving potted tomatoes and peppers in there this winter.... No need for supplemental light in there. In our climate there is not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes, as the Carpenters sang, and that south-facing wall of windows means the plants just need to be turned a couple of times a week.

I also have one Yellow Stuffer plant that is just plodding away (short season garden, medium/late season tomato) and still looking just as healthy as the Amber Colored, but it's a huge plant in a huge pot, so I just don't see a way to move it to DSD's house. It certainly won't fit in my cottage! I think next year I will START the stuffer at DSD's house so all we will need to do come October is slide it inside.

There's a new project: How about a dwarf stuffer? A dwarf short-season stuffer?

Catherine (feeling the chill of autumn on my mountain side)

[lakelady]

Catherine, I envy those of you in warmer climates, but then again, maybe someone out there envies me for living in NJ....what? no one? lol....I DO like the change of seasons and at least my growing season isn't too short, so thats a good thing. Although 7 months from first frost to last frost sounds like an awfully long time, doesn't it?

You're lucky you have that greenhouse room to move things into, I wish I had one. Maybe in my next life...

Here is what my living room bay window now looks like...I have 2 growlights there, and am anxiously awaiting the leaves falling (the mighty oaks that surround my property don't lose leaves early, and I think there's a lake effect so some don't fall until December!) so I can get more direct sun other than morning light in that window. There are a few houseplants in the photo too, I suspect I'll have more tomatoes than i have room for!

[Elizabeth]

Sometimes I wish we got a bit more chill - for the veggie's sake It's 8 months from last to first frost dates here so our cool crops have a short season - I bet your brassicas and parsnips get WAY sweeter than mine.

[Mike Maurer]

I too live in New Mexico and this year has been a bit of a challenge to grow things. Albuquerque has yet to get 2" of rainfall for the year. It has been very dry and hotter than normal in our area of NM this year. Many times we westerners do envy you easterners your rainfall, we keep saying there's got to be a way to pump all that water west! I hope you and Catherine solve the winter growing challange. I'll be tuning in to see how you are doing and maybe I'll get courage to try. I do have a couple of small tomatoes in pots that I may try to move in if I can convince my Frau that it is a good idea. They do take a dim view of the littter on the floor and etc.!

[lakelady]

Well, I've got some dwarfs, and some indeterminates. The only reason for the IND was because I was chomping at the bit to try some varieties I got too late to plant in the season. Ailsa Craig and Thessaloniki are two of those. Then I got a wild idea to try Black from Tula and seeds I saved from what "might" be Ananas Noir. So I'll have 4 large plants in the kitchen where I have tall ceilings, in front of a southern exposure sliding glass door. Then the dwarfs are in the bay window. Then there are a couple of smaller currant tomato plants in hanging baskets. Do you think I went overboard? Of course I did ! Some of those I started just to test g ermination, and well, once they started to grow, I just couldn't bear to kill them, so into pots they went. Good news is, I did give away about 8 plants already to good homes...now I still have a few more. Not expecting a huge harvest, but a few tomatoes to enjoy and try out this way of growing indoors to see what happens.

The biggest problem outdoors I had here was the rain. And more rain, and more rain. It was too wet and humid, so of course, veggies got killed with fungus issues. So did a few other plants, like my lilacs, but the squash and tomatoes upset me the most. That's probably one reason why I was really dying to try the indoor project to see how the plants would do in a drier climate. The challenge will likely also be humidity with indoor heat, so I'll have to setup humidifiers near the plants. Shorter plants can likely take a weekly "shower" in the bathroom if needed

[artis]

Here is what I used last winter. The varieties were Danko, Clear Pink Early, Moravsky Div and Glacier. Danko and Clear Pink Early had an outstanding taste. The lights were mainly T8 fluorescents (8x32W).