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I am taking the liberty of posting this excellent article Carolyn posted at the TomatoMania web site several years ago. Perhaps it will provide some helpful information to you.
Gary/Louisville
Subject: Starting Tomato Seeds
Date: 01/06/2000 11:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time
By: Carolyn Male
There's no one way to start seeds but there are a few things that MUST be
done or you tempt fate. Translate, you have lousy or dead seedlings. LOL
First, you MUST use artificial soilless mix. Regular potting soil has lots of
fungi in it and you increase the chances of your seedlings developing damping
off which is characterized by the young seedlings developing a narrowed stem
at the soil level and falling down...as in DEAD. Rhizoctonia and other
genera of fungi are responsible for this disease. Using a Benomyl drench or
some folks say Chamomile tea, may deter it. So start with a good
artificial mix like Jiffy Mix (my favorite), or Pro-Mix or Peter's, etc.
Don't plant seeds in a container that you'll use to grow the plant to
maturity. You MUST transplant the seedlings at least once in order to get a
decent plant, as I'll explain later, so plant your seeds in any container you
like. I use Permanest seedling pans which are available all over the place
and they work very well. Now I sow many varieties and you may be sowing for
only a few. So you could use an egg carton and sow 4-5 seeds in a hole or a
margarine tub or a small Dixie cup or what ever.
You must completely wet the artificial mix by putting it in a plastic tub and
adding warm water. It will initially repel the water. Get in there and mix
with your hands until it's all moistened nicely. Then pack it into the
containers you're going to use. After I've packed into my Permanest trays I
moisten it again, pour off the excess water and let it sit exposed to the air
overnight. Tell you why I do that in a sec.
OK, now plant your seeds. Plant them about the same thickness as the
thickness of the seed, that is shallowly. And if the seeds are fresh plant
the seeds about 1/8 inch apart. If you goof and plant too many seeds you can
thin out the minute they come up. Sowing too thickly and not thinning leads
to spindly weak seedlings. You want each seedling to be quite separate. Sow
CHERRY TOMATO seed a week later because they grow so fast.
After you sow the seeds slip a plastic baggie over the container making sure
to leave an opening for air. You want to keep conditions moist so you DON'T
have to water the seeds yet you MUST allow for air circulation or risk
damping off and similar. I prop up the open end of the bag with one of my
plastic labels. Now set the pan/tub/whatever, on top of something where there
will be a tad of warmth. DO NOT PLACE under lights or you'll cook your
seedlings. If you use one of those kits with a plastic dome make sure the
dome is also propped up or you'll also cook the seeds, even better than with
just a baggie over them.Tomatoes do not need bottom warmth for germination,
as do most peppers, but they germinate faster that way. Place the pans on top
of the light fixtures or on top of your fridge or on top of your water
heater. Whatever. And when you see the first seedlings emerge, immediately
take off the baggie and place the tray/tub, whatever, under the lights or in
the light, etc.
If using lights you must keep the lights about two inches above the growing
seedlings. Sometimes an inch is fine. Yes, it means you'll have to move the
light fixtures often during early growth. It's hard to grow good seedlings
without strong light. If you use a windowsill be sure there are no drafts
because cold drafts and wet mix spell doom and death to the seedlings. And
you must remember to turn the container each day so light reaches all sides of
the plants.
OK, thin out the young ones if you sowed too thickly and you can do it just
by pinching them or use a small pair of scissors. At this point you should
not have watered you newly emerged seedlings because there was plenty of
moisture in the mix covered by the baggie.
Added this after finishing the whole post. If you use lights do so with a
timer. Leave them on for 14-16 hours per day and NEVER at night. The
metabolism of plants is such that they need a dark period to make energy
products to grow.
In a couple of days you'll see the mix drying out and you can water very
gently. The first little green things that emerge are NOT leaves, they are
called cotyledons. They are followed by the first set of leaves and then the
second set of leaves at which point you MUST transplant the seedlings to
another conatainer as described below.
Occasionally the seed coat doesn't come off one of the germinated seeds and
if you don't remove it the plant will die. Surgery is called for. LOL Moisten
a cotton ball and hold it to the seed coat for a few minutes. Then gently
grasp the seed coat with your fingers and it should pop off. If it doesn't,
you lose. Or shall we say the plant loses. Sure , I've snapped off the whole
tops of the plants sometimes and then had a funeral service, but that's
why you always plant a few more seeds than you need. LOL
Now, have I said anything about fertilizing? NO NO NO. Do NOT fertilize. You
risk burning the delicate rootlets and the seedlings don't need it anyway.
They have the endosperm rich contents of the seed to grow on. Water your
seedlings as they need it, but sparingly, and when the second set of leaves
emerge it's time to transplant. The seedlings will usually be about two
inches high at this point.Experienced folks transplant at even a younger
plant age.And if you feel you MUST fertilize please use a very dilute
preparation.
OK, now time to transplant. I use commercial trays with plastic cell type
liners. Each tray has eight 4 cell units. Each cell is about1/1/2 inches in
diameter and about two inches deep. There are then 32 cells per standard
nursery tray that isabout22 by 11 inches. Don't go smaller than that on cell
sizes.The seedlings will be grwon to maturity in these cells and I'll have
beautiful, lovely stocky plants. Yes I will. LOL. It's best if you use the
same soiless mix at this point, or if you have lots of plants you can use
perlite and/or vermiculite and add one part of the latter to one part seed
starting mix.. So rewet your unused mix or mix up a new batch and pack the
cells with mix. If you want to
use small individual pots at this point that's also just fine. But don't use,
IMHO, a huge pot, like over three inches, or so. You don't want to grow huge
transplants to put in the garden. And you want the major initial growth of
the plant to be in the garden or container and not in a pot or cell.You want
a plant about 9-12 inches tall. That's all. OK, so to transplant. Make sure
the mix with the seedlings is moist. Delicately grasp a seedling by the
LEAVES and, whoops, you would have poked a hole in your new container with
mix before you pick up the seedling.
Make that hole with a pencil. Works fine. And you're going to sink that
seedling ALL THE WAY down so only the little leaves are above the soil line.
That's important. Very inportant. Tomatoes form roots wherever the stems make
contact with soil so you want to sink those plants way down. And then you
don't have exposed stems to flop over either. LOL Now water in the newly
transplanted seedlings.
OK, why is it so important to transplant? Because it shocks the plant and
retards foliage grwoth so that root grwoth can occur. If you don't do it you
get huge leggy stupid seedlings that flop all over the place and are a
disgrace to the genus Lycopersicon. That's why. LOL
Put your transplants back under the lights keeping the lights no more than
two inches, or so, from the leaves. I didn't mention it above, but your
lights should be on a timer and be on for about 14-16 hours a day. They need
a dark period for metabolism, so don't run the lights at night. Put your
transplants back on the windowsill if not using lights and keep rotating the
containers each day so they get even light.
Tomato plants develop best when grown at cool temps. Commercial growers will
usually have one greenhouse set at about 55-60 F degrees. If you can
duplicate that you're going to get a better plant. Warmth is needed for
germination and early seedling growth but once you transplant you want cool
conditions for optimum plant development. If you can't, you can't. So Don't
worry. But don't compound the problem by trying to fertilize your
transplants. DON't
Fertilize. let the plants develop naturally, which they will. Don't risk
burning the rootlets. When the plants are about 4-5 inches high if you want
to fertilize with dilute something, go ahead. I suggest fertilizing with
water. Bit of a joke there. But I assure you it's for your peace of mind, not
the plant's benefit. Fertilizer at this point can cause too rapid growth and
weak stems, so please don't do it. PLease? LOL You aren't going to fertilize
those plants until they're transplanted out in the garden, OK????????? And
we'll get to that whole business later, not in this post.
You keep growing your plants until they get to be maybe about 10 inches high
and it should be close to when you want to transplant them outside.If you
want to run a fan near your growing plants that's fine also; good for air
circulation. And if you want to run your hands or a ruler over the foliage a
couple times a day that's fine too. The plants respond to touch, called
thigmotropism,and that is sometimes reflected in even better growth.
Next you must harden off the seedlings. That means putting them outside for a
few hours each day , initially in a shaded spot, and then increasing exposure
to the sun as the days pass. Protect from harsh winds and bring the plants
inside if cool weather appears, etc. you must toughen them up for the big
cool cruel world out there. And withhold water as best you can. Starve them
and don't water them until they start to wilt, then water a bit. Got to
toughen them up.
And at this point REMOVE every single blossom on the plant, if there are any.
The earliest growth of a tomato plant must be devoted to vegetative grwoth of
leaves, stems and roots, not a sexual cycle of reproduction and setting
fruit, etc. So get all those blossoms off the plants. Blossoms that develop
once the plants are out in the garden are fine to leave on the plant.
When the weather seems settled it's OK to put out the plants. Remove the
bottom leaves of the plant that have turned yellow. It's natural that they
would have turned yellow and most of the time those yellow leaves will fall
off naturally. If not, you take them off. Now set the plant into the hole so
that the soil level is right up to the bottom green leaves. It is important,
again, to set the plants deeply. After transplanting to the garden water
them in.
NO NO NO, do NOT use dilute fertilizer at this point regardless of what
you've read, etc. You've got new roots meeting new soil and you want to let
the root system develop with out any interference. And you DON"t put anything
into that hole. No Epsom Salts, no dead fish, no matchheads, etc. The only
thing going into that hole should be the plant. Period.
OK, we've got the plants out there and you've put them where they'll recieve
maximum sun and hopefully placed them where the AM sun will burn off the
morning dew. That's important in terms of foliage diseses.
We haven't talked about spacing of plants because that means talking about
HOW you're going to grow them. That is, staking, caging, sprawling,
trellising, etc.
And that's an area we can explore separately. Plenty of time.
The above is a guide based on my own experiences of trying a variety of
methods.I'm sure many of you have come up with methods that are different
that might work better for you. The point is to experiment and see what works
for you with your space limitations,light limitations, etc.
Seeds should be started 6-8 weeks before the last average frost date, for
most folks. In the warmer zones that's not an issue. And we've already
discussed planting two crops a year in zones 9 and 10. Cherry tomatoes should
be seeded a week after the others because they grow more rapidly..
At least the above can serve as a guidleline for folks new to planting tomato
seeds.
No doubt I've forgotten something in the above, maybe not, but we can work
thru it together.
Good luck and skill. You all can do it.
Carolyn
NY, zone 4/5
First, I admit I'm lazy when it comes to doing e-mails to any message
board for the purpose of giving links. So please excuse me on that
score
To find out how to do TSP treatments just go to Google.com and enter
the words...TSP treatment of tomato seeds. The first link that pops
up is Tom Wagner's and he gives you his method. But please remember,
as he also states, that he's using a single fruit most of the time as
part of his breeding programs. So fermentation is not a viable
alternative for him.
And there are other links there also with more detailed specific
instructions.
I'm really quite surprised that use of TSP ( trisodium phosphate) is
approved by Organic Gardening standards, but there are also other
contradictions that I see, but we won't discuss them here. LOL
Instead of using saltpetre as I used to suggest for waking up seeds,
I would try just an overnight plain water soak first, or going one
step further, use of dilute Miracle Gro or similar. It's the nitrate ion
concentration that is the important ingredient.
I never pretreat seeds unless I have a very rare variety for which
there is no other source of seed available. I don't treat to enhance
germination, just when there is no germination at all because the
seeds are too old.
But I'll repeat here, I cannot and will not recommend TSP treatment
of any seeds for home gardeners because of the caustic nature of TSP
( trisodium phosphate). Pets and kids are important. If an adult
works with it alone with gloves and other safety stuff, then maybe
OK. But why use it when there are , I think, more reasonable
alternatives. For commercial places, yes, it's less bothersome than
other methods, but few home growers are commercial in that sense of
the word.
As regards fermentation, in all the years I've been doing it the only
time I get germination of seeds in the mix is when I've let the
fermention go too far. I've never had germination of seeds before
that. Are you making sure that you have plenty of liquid in the mix?
With certain varieties I don't get much juice so I always add a tad
of water.
I also find that the gold/red bicolors which have very soft flesh are
more prone to have germninated seeds inside the ripe fruits. So for
them I usually use fruits that are not definitely not overripe, or
usually I use fruits that are slightly underripe.
Hope the above helps.
Carolyn
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