16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
If I had my choice I always move plants out on cloudy or rainy days. The transition is much easier to handle; no need for shade cloth or constant monitoring of plant condition.
Granted that those days are involved in the hardening-off process but the less abrupt of a change you can make for this process the better your plants will respond.
Well, the Espoma does seem more like the Fafard potting soil (you can see the humus, not as peaty as the Jiffy or even the Burpee). Might be a little too dense for starting seed - we'll see next year, could be OK if not packed and seeds just lightly covered/misted. I was worried it might be too dense and water-retentive, but the kale I potted up on Friday seems to be doing OK, I'll pot up more (plus tomatoes, maybe peppers) tomorrow and see how long it goes without watering.
The tomatoes in Jiffy mix that I soaked well on Wed aren't wilting, but the trays are much lighter now and the surface is dry - I'll have to see how the roots are when I pot up. The kale was pretty densely planted, so each seedling didn't have a very extensive root system, but I managed to tease them apart and haven't seen any wilting since Friday so I think they're going to make it through the surgery ;-)
A week ago I transplanted mine, which were 3 weeks old and 3-5 inches tall in 1 by 2.5 by 2.5 inch pots, to pots that are 4 inches square and 5 inches deep holding a quart of soil. I placed the soil block from the original pot directly into the bottom of the deeper pot and gently filled in around them. In some cases the first set of true leaves were buried and only a tuft of the second set were visible above the soil. They have all grown considerably in the week since and look great. Go as deep as you can. I'm hoping mine will be able to go out for hardening off in 2-3 weeks.
I'm doing mine tomorrow, but since I have limited space indoors right now I'm just going from 72-cell flat to 50-cell flats and 1 plant per cell instead of 2 (or some cases, like cherries, as many as 6!). Had started seed March 16 but then had a few varieties I started later, and I've still got some emerging (they've been off the heat for weeks, I really thought I wasn't going to get any more).
I'll go to 3-4" pots later in the month, or early May, start hardening off mid-May.
Sue,
Leaving the lights on at night a few times won't hurt. But what you might want to do is get an inexpensive timer and use it. That way you can set it the times you want the lights to turn on and off.
If you are using more than one bank of lights, I suggest a timer with ground plugs, and a "power strip" also with ground plugs. That way you can plug the timer into your wall outlet then plug your lights into the power strip. I have three shelves with lights over them and all six of my shop light assemblies are plugged into a power strip that is plugged into a timer.
The fans I use are 6" clip on fans and they are plugged into a timer on one of my power strips (I actually have two power strips with overload protection, daisy chained). The main timer is set to run for 16 hours a day. The one for the fans has the little tabs you move to turn 30 minute increments on or off. I have it set for 3 1/2 hours off and 30 minutes on.
Because my fans are 6", I do have to rotate my trays. I do it when I water. I'd like to put an oscilating fan on the plants, but there isn't room for one in the narrow spot I have for my plant stand.
It looks like a mess, but it works for me.
I hope that helps.
Betsy
This post was edited by bets on Sun, Apr 7, 13 at 13:11
LOL, thanks Bets, I actually have a couple of those timers somewhere, I just have to fish them out. By the way, I have a ceiling fan in there but it is useless because the lights protect the seedlings from the fan. I have them in a power strip already, so I only need the timer.
I think 20 gallons would be good for most tomatoes. In spite of what I said I would do above, last summer I grew one tomato each in 25 gallon Smart Pots and had excellent results with most of them. I grew one goose creek in a 20 gallon smart pot, and it was very productive. I used Al's 5-1-1 mix with osmocote plus 15-9-12 incorporated and also used a soluble fertilizer during the season. I think you need to fertilize pretty generously in containers.
durant7, many years ago some friends of mine with science degrees used to cite somebody's scientific law which went something like this:
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it **** well pleases.
If you look online, there are a number of variants on different subjects (computers ... even one for science fiction conventions -- and having attended a few, I can relate).
Perhaps we should write a gardener's variant about seeds and add it to the FAQs?
This spring, I seem to have more than the usual number of tomato seeds which have decided to follow their own logic and do as they **** well please.
Sounds like there is no clear "you should have done x". I honestly feel that for the first 14 days, they were in the same plastic flats, the same watering schedule (damp until dry and then water) and ... if current growth is an indicator, I would say "Early Pick" is not going to live up to its name.
Now, I will admit, DTM I thought was from germination to fruit ripe. Thanks for the education. I started my seeds with a May 20 last front date thus my Mar 18th seeds in date.
I hear ya, "stuff happens" but I fear she will be right. We'll end up buying plants if we ever want to see something on the table. Next year I will start March 1st indoors. And maybe have two 4' 6500k lights.
Here is a picture of the difference. Best Boy in foreground, Early Pick in background after 20 days in the same environment. The Early Pick went into the peat pots today as they finally looked like they were ready for transplant. I am not a fan of peat pots....I had them and thus I am using them up. My "potting up" is a bit of a rag tag affair.
Since i have been using Dyna gro "Protekt" from seedling to maturity i have bigger, healthier, stress tolerant plants with a big reduction in BER.
Cal Mag is another product that helps in the BER battle.
A steady application of ACT's helps your plants fight off many other diseases and insects.
i use one ounce per gallon of the calcium chloride to clear up my blossom end rot problem, in my indoor growing tomatoes- this is the stuff you use to put on your sidewalk to melt the ice in winter - you water the plants with it -
it works great. add a lot of bonemeal to your growing mix and some compost to introduce organisms that will feed on it to release the calcium - pm.
It doesn't matter if it's Texas or Maine where it's grown, it's not invasive.
Johnny's introduced it and went out of the way to ID it as an S. lycopersicon var cerasiforme, which means it's a half domesticated cherry tomato and not a currant variety.
It will grow as any other indeterminate variety grows, so not to worry.
Actually I don't know of ANY tomato variety that's invasive. For sure some are described as being rampant, with long vines, but they stay where planted.
THe only way you'd get plants in the woods is if you or any critters throw/carry some fruits into the woods and the seeds in the fruits go dormant when it's cold and then can pop up when the temps are OK for seed germination when the weather warms in the Spring.
Carolyn
I grew two Husky Cherry Reds last year in 4-gallon pots -- Bonnie seedlings from a big-box store, so I assume there'd be some near you.
They grew to only about 4' tall (12" wide), so you'd have to bend a bit to pick the early fruit, but it wouldn't grow over your head. (Mine were on the front porch, pretending to be matching potted evergreens, so I could access them from the front walk without bending quite as much.)
Though tree-types, they did need a bit of support; I started them with single stakes but apparently wasn't tying the stems to the stakes often enough: the top of one plant broke off in a minor storm, and the other plant's main stem fell over and didn't want to straighten, so I left it where it was. I added narrow ring cages, and they were enough to prevent other support issues for the rest of the season.
It was a Late Blight year, but I was able to cut off the bad bits and keep the plant going for a couple of months.
Above-average taste for a cherry.
Husky Cherry Red does great in the home depot buckers (most of my garden is in those).
I grew Better Bush in the buckets last year as well and they did okay.
Mr. Stripey did not.
Even smaller, Sweet N Neat produced bountiful, very sweet, large red cherry tomatoes in 2 gallon buckets.
Thanks for the info Dave . Very helpful . Greatly appeciated. Thats why I love this site. Never too old to learn .
Maybe just a 20% mix of the compost, which is the percentage I used. My compost that I sterilized personally would greatly reduce the chances of damping off as opposed to 100% compost.Do you think I should save some of this compost for seed starting next year or would it be usable and beneficial after setting for a year? Sorry, new at composting too !