Topic: yet another tomato question

[Simon05]

my toms germinated ok, but now are at a stand still, they have grown about 1 inch thats it, temp in greenhouse is 60f, could it be lack of light?

[sandersj89]

Combination of light and temp maybe. If you can raise both levels they will get on OK.

But dont raise the temp unless the light level can be increased as you may end up with leggy plants.

Give it a few weeks and the day length will soon increase. They will be fine for a while anyway as long as you keep the temp around 60.

I have not even sown my tomatoes as yet, job for next weekend I suspect. But I can heat and light my greenhouse.

And in nature things often tend to catch up.

Jerry

[Simon05]

Jerry,

thanks for the info, I can increase the temp, but not light levels, the allotment is too far away from the house. I mostly fret about toms, then put more in, I wind up with more than I know what to do with, lol

[littlegem]

sanders, what happens when toms r a bit leggy, mine seemed to come out of airing cupboard like that, even thou i was keeping watchful eye on them. when i pricked them out i got them as far down the pot as poss, do u reckon they'll be ok?

[Roy Bham UK]

I thought mine were a bit leggy last year (see below) but they were fine and produced well. 8)

[sandersj89]

sanders, what happens when toms r a bit leggy, mine seemed to come out of airing cupboard like that, even thou i was keeping watchful eye on them. when i pricked them out i got them as far down the pot as poss, do u reckon they'll be ok?

Yes they will most likely be fine if you burying them up to their necks. One advantage of doing that is they will produce more roots from the buried section of stem.

I finally got around to sowing mine at the weekend using root trainers so still a fair bit away from potting on!

Jerry

[Ricado]

I have read the tomato book by simpsons seeds (a fantastic book)  and they discuss leggy tomatoes and burying the stem, so to speak.  Burying the stem is routine in southern america by commercial growers.  This helps to grow extra roots for a better moisture collection system.

Other marvellous tricks were

to pot on the sideshoots to multiply plant numbers without seed.

to pinch the tip after only 1 truss to gain mega early tomatoes

and

to layer the stem and treat the sideshoots as seperate uprights i.e 3 main uprights from 1 plant !

try it, im going to this year.

[littlegem]

last year i forgot to snip out a side shoot and it grew to another stem, so i pulled it off and put it in a vase and fed baby bio now and again, i actually got a small crop off of it!!!!!!! :)