"thing is, nobody has really made as big mistakes as I have."

Wanna bet? I burned down a fifty foot elm tree by mistake. Top that!

"How do I transplant my tomatoes safely and spread them out without destroying their tangled roots? "

Your plants seem to never have had enough light. They are not healthy. Kill one and bury the remainder as deep as you can. Your bunny will appreciate it.

Alternately, if you can use a south side exposure, bury the whole thing (not the pot) sideways in a trench with only the leafy part above ground. Water well. The idea is to get the tomatoes, rooting maniacs that they are, to grow new roots along the stems so you can cut them back from their extreme naked lengths. You are not as secure from frost as you may think, so be prepared to cover the tomatoes with something at short notice; perhaps you could plop a tote over them on the dangerous evenings. Later, after some possible root growth, you can snip and repot.

Another possibility is to plant the whole plant complex in a deep pot or five gallon bucket, again as deep as the plant can go and still keep it's head free. Seven gallon buckets like hops come in are also nice and extra deep.

There's a lot you can do and most of it will work as long as you give them much much more sunlight.

Trellis: You can let toms sprawl on the ground, particularly in Arizona as the soil surface can be nice and dry. Use mulch to keep off the dirt if you want.

Now for a heads-up: this is prime time for starting new plants from seed. Use two or three seeds (inexpensive envelope of two dozen seeds at Home depot for two dollars) per little pot and once they've sprouted and grown two inches, snip out the weaker ones, if any, and give the survivors as much window sun as you can possibly manage. Although fussy people will tell you otherwise, it's just as simple as that.

Grubby's advice is spot on. Your plants are leggy, which means they haven't been getting enough sun. As he/she said, bury them up to the leaves in a sunny spot and they'll have a chance to grow some solid roots.

Ditto what the others said.

Another option would be to chop off the tops, root them in water and then transplant them into individual containers or coffee cups, remembering to pot them up into bigger containers when they grow.

Linda

I would not waste my time and efforts trying to correct all the mishaps. Probably they sell plants in nurseries, in AZ . I would go and buy some and get it going.

Seysonn

If you started those seeds last summer, the plants are too old and lanky for transplanting to be of any benefit now. As others have mentioned, best bet is to chop off the green tops, root them in water, pot them up when you see a few white roots starting to form (don't wait til your container is full of roots) and bury the roots and stem up to the first leafs left on the stem. Then put them outdoors in a sheltered sunny spot and re-pot them a few times into larger pots as they grow, burying the stem up to the leaves each time, if you think you'll have to bring them back into the house if if freezes at night. Your final pot should be a 5 gallon minimum, larger is better.

That's a 5 gallon pot for each individual tomato, they should always be separated the very first time you transplant them after seeding, not transplanted as a group. Let us know how you do, it will be an interesting project to try to save them and get them to grow to fruiting. Good Luck!

Troll?

Troll? On a garden site? How so?

If you wanted these tomatoes to survive and live happily, you should have separated them months ago. They sure aren't happy now.

If you really want to save them separately (not sure why, unless they are some novel variety), I'd just slice the rootball halfway between the stalks and plant each side deeply. As noted, roots will form out of the stalks, though old, hardened stalks are less of a good bet for this. You'll cut off half the roots of each stalk, but that's the breaks.

If the outside temp is going to stay higher than 45F, just put them outside in the sun and keep the soil moist. They desperately need some sunlight.

I agee. Unless they are some novel, hard to find variety, I don't think they are worth trying to salvage them.

You might try to grow some cutting from them, if you really want them badly.

Seysonn

Get your self some 4' shop lights, T8, and put 32W 6500k bulbs in them. Home Despot carries the bulbs for as low as 3.33/ea if you buy a box of 10. Valdemart, Home Despot, and Menards all carry cheap shop lights that will do the job. You want a T8 fixture that will hold 2 32W bulbs, as narrow as possible so you can fit as many as possible on each shelf. Make sure they are T8 fixtures and not T12 - the cheapest fixtures are generally T12.

Get some wire shelves that are 4' long and 18" to 24" wide - it is super easy to hang fixtures from those wire shelves by the chains that (usually) come with the fixtures.

Unless you don't mind wiring in a power cord, make sure the fixtures you buy come with a pre-wired power cord and plug.

You will not believe the difference it will make to your seedlings. Even one dual-bulb T8 fixture will help - 2 of them per shelf (for a total of 4 32W bulbs between them) will solve all your seed-starting woes.

Check out megagreenhouse.com for plant trays that will fit on your shelves - to catch any drips or spills. Also planting flats and pots.

Set up an oscillating fan in front of your grow shelves - to protect from overheating due to the heat from the lights, to keep the air moving so fungus doesn't get a start, and to strengthen the stems of your seedlings.

Get varieties acclimated to your super hot climate. Look for heat resistant varieties and varieties with a short maturation. Cherry tomatoes and paste types allegedly do well in your climate.

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Tomatoes in Arizona

As noted in a recent posting, just plant them SIDEWAYS. Yep, just lay them down in a trench and cover the stems with decent soil. Leave the leaf end above the soil where you want the plant to be. For the plants growing an inch apart in the same pot, just transplant the whole pot in the middle of the bed, extend the trenches in different directions, and lay each plant along a different trench. If the stems aren't so old that they refuse to root, that'll guarantee survival and probably even production. No cutting.