Starting Seeds General Info

[hardwaterbob]

Here is a brief overview that I found on a university web site. I hope this answers questions about temps and when to fertilize and transplant.

Starting from Seed
1. Make sure seed starting tray, pots, mixing bowl, and trowel are clean. If necessary, rinse with 10% bleach solution.

2. Pour dry seed starting mix into large mixing bowl and moisten until just damp. Soil should clump when squeezed, but not be sopping wet.

3. Loosely transfer moist soil mix into seed starting tray or pots.

4. Drop tomato seeds onto surface of soil and then plant as shallow as humanly possible. You may use a toothpick or other tool to push seed slightly under the surface of the soil. Alternately, sprinkle a fine layer of dry seed starting mix and then mist with a clean spray bottle full of water until moist.

5. Cover surface of seed starting tray with clear plastic lid (if provided) or loosely tent with plastic wrap and set in a warm (not hot) place with a temperature from 55-75 degrees. Plastic cover should not be airtight.

6. When seeds begin to germinate, remove plastic cover and move tray/pots under fluorescent lights at a distance of no more than 1-2 inches from bulbs for 16 hours a day. There is no danger of your seedlings being burned if they touch the bulbs.

7. Every day, raise lights or lower pots/tray as needed to maintain a distance of no more than 1-2 inches between leaves and light bulbs.

8. When seedlings have their second set of true leaves, apply liquid fertilizer at half strength mixed in a clean chemical-free spray bottle (ie 1/2 tsp in a 20 oz spray bottle full of water).

9. If your seedlings are in trays, then you will need to transplant at 3-4 weeks into pots. This should happen when seedlings have their third set of true leaves , and are approximately 3-5″ tall. When transplanting, retain some extra plants as “backups” in case a frost damages your initial planting.

10. Once seedlings are 5-7 weeks old, they should be approximately 8-10″ tall. At this point, it is now 1-2 weeks prior to the scheduled planting time. You should begin “hardening off” your seedlings by gradually exposing them to sunlight, first with full shade, then a few minutes of sunlight a day, gradually increasing their exposure until on the 7th or 8th day, they are experiencing full sun even in the hottest part of the day (11am-1pm).

11. When weather forecasts are predicting no upcoming nights below 40°F, transplant tomato seedlings outside into your garden as deep as possible, removing any leaves that will be buried. This should take place on a cloudy day, or in the mid-to-late afternoon to allow plants 1 day to acclimate. In case of full sun, a sheet or row cover may be draped over sticks, cages, or other framework to shield the plants from full sun for a few days.



Bob

[erlyberd]

Sounds good to me except but I put much older plants into the ground otherwise I end up waiting until August for ripe fruit. It just means more work repotting into much larger pots. My extra, early varieties are going on 6 weeks old right now with 6-8 weeks before setting out.

[hardwaterbob]

How big are your plants now. And how big do they get when you set them out side.
I have plants that I started about 4 weeks ago and I am planning on potting them up a couple times before I put them out. I have a large 57 qrt. plastic container that I plan on filling with peat, so I can set the plants out on warm days and use a wagon to move them into my garage at night on cold days. That is my plan to get an early start. I am also considering using waterfilled 2 liter bottles to maintain a warm and windfree climate when I first set the plant's outside. The over view also included a hardening off program, which I didn't post. At least this overview gives a nice guide line of what to do and when to do it. This is the guide I am using, since I am new to the seed starting process. The plants I now have growing look very healthy.

Bob

[kymaterjuice]

I have a question. Why does everyone always say when planting tomato plants to plant deep as possible and remove the lower leaves that will be covered up? Why remove these leaves? Looks like it wouldn't make any difference if you removed them or not because they will die anyway. I've been wanting to know this for some time now and hope someone can enlighten me on this. I know planting deep helps , but removing the leaves has me puzzled. Does it hurt to leave the lower leaves on ?

[Sundrops]

Planting your tomatoes deep gives you all kinds of benefits. I am sure there are a number of reasons why you want to take off all the leaves that go underground, but I will mention just a few, one being that where the leaves are attached there are nodes that grow good strong roots. Actually roots grow all along the stem of the plant that is underground but I personally think they are much stronger at the node area. Another reason I would think is that the leaves would rot and possibly cause disease and why would you want anything to start giving you trouble right off the bat.

I always plant my tomatoes as deep as possible for the following reasons. One, as stated above, the stem develops roots all along the length of it. This gives the plant a great foundation of roots to take up all the water and nutrients needed during the growing season. Another very important reason that a lot of people never think about is insurance against drought. Think about it, if you plant your tomatoes straight out of the pot with the root base 3-4" under the soil you will need to make sure that the soil does not dry out during the summer. Now, if you plant your tomatoes 7-8" under the ground you have a lot of moisture that deep that can supply your plants with what they need naturally.

Now, I may get a lot of raised eybrows here but I can tell you that once I plant my garden I never water again during the season. I depend on rain and mulch, besides my garden is way too far away from the house to run a garden hose. Last year here in Southern Indiana we were way behind in rainfall and were in a drought situation. My tomatoes were great all year once we got past the blossom end rot in the beginning. I didn't water them one time after the initial planting and watering them in. I attribute the fact that I didn't need to to the deep planting and mulching.

Mulching is the single most important thing a gardener can do to insure against drought and weeds. Also, it keeps the rain from splashing the dirt up on the plants which cause disease. Again with the raised eybrows, I don't weed. I mulch. Lots of mulch. My wonderful husband has a couple of buddies who mulch their leaves in the fall and give them to us. We collect lots. My garden is about 60' X 100' and is completely mulched with leaves. Yeah, it's work at first but I plant and don't do any more work until time to prune, tie up and general maintenance of the plants. I don't have time to weed. Don't get me wrong, on occasion I have to pull a stray one here or there, but I don't break my back for hours on end or run a tiller or hoe in my garden all year. If you've never tried it, mulch this year. Oh, and I do it the minute I plant my tomatoes. Don't wait..

Well, I apologize if I got off subject but I do get excited about my garden.

Sundrops

[erlyberd]

Bob,

Right now most (Indeterminates) are at the 1' mark and the (D) are a bit smaller. Some (I) can be rather large almost three footers like Yellow Pear was last year. This season I tried to stay with the lower growing varieties for starting super early. It just makes it easier for me carting the plants around.

I'd love to be able to roll my low-tunnel into the garage at night but I have to hand load. Sad face goes here!

Most people remove all the leaves below the first fruit cluster anyway. Reguardless of planting depth. But to answer your question you remove the leaves so as to not promote rot, soil bourne disease etc. Normally I never plant much deeper than the first set of true leaves if that. I think deep planting is a good cure all to plants that got off to a leggy start IMOP.