Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: ina on February 26, 2004, 23:18:49
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http://members.myactv.net/~paul.gantz/tomatoes/StartingToms/Starting_Tomatoes.htm (http://members.myactv.net/~paul.gantz/tomatoes/StartingToms/Starting_Tomatoes.htm)
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Nice One!!! Thank you Ina.
Don't you just love it when someone explains something in plain English? I've grown tomatoes before, but your link is great for those that haven't.
This board seems particularly good at explaining things to gardening newbies - I've learnt to chit potatoes on these pages!
:-* Tricia
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That's what it's all about??
What a site, Ina - but be warned, anyone - 10 pages of print. A lot of ink!!= Tim
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Thanks Ina, I've never grown toms from seed before, and have no greenhouse to start em off in - these instructions really useful!
Is now a good time to start them off?
ta,
jams :)
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Without a greenhouse, I would say 'cool it'! There are others who take the bit between their teeth and get away with it! Things will make up time lost now. = Tim
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great info there Ina. Very usefull especialy for novices. Even for a more experienced growers there are things to be learnt from it.
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Thanks for the feedback everybody. I thought it was a very nice site but one never knows if others like it.
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When did you ever feed us 'duff gen', Ina? = Tim
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Blood-y tomatoes,why didn`t I get a passion for brass rubbing or train spotting instead ?;D
Stephan
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- because you, like others, would wear out our heritage?? Stick with toms - everyone loves them! = Tim
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Oh jeez, mine are really getting leggy now despite the light. I know, I know, I should have waited but I'm going to soon bury those suckers up to their necks.
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That is so straighforward and easy to follow Ina. Thanks :D busy_lizzie
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Hi,when your tomatoplants are starting to be leggie,put them in a colder surrounding.
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Great tomatoes for beginers site. :D
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Wish I'd waited before sewing my tomato seeds Ina. Just put them in the greenhouse in normal multi-purpose compost. :-\ First time growing them from seed so didn't really know the correct way. Great site with loads of useful info - but unfortunately no pictures for me :(
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Hi,when your tomatoplants are starting to be leggie,put them in a colder surrounding.
I did do just that Ruud, thanks.
Patricia S. Too bad you couldn't see the pictures in the tomato link. Is your greenhouse heated? It's much too cold yet otherwise. I have always started my tomatoes indoors in fine seed compost, I'm just a little early this time that's all. I also re-pot them deeper a few times, up to the top bunch of leaves so the stem will grow a nice root system before I plant them in their permanent place.
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Yes Ian - my greenhouse is heated. Thanks for the info about repotting.
Sorry - make that 'Ina' :D
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Ehm, it's Ina, same letters different sequence hahaha.
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Good stuff Ina,
The technique should work equally well for chilis and aubergines
Phil
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Chillies are coming up as are the capsicum and long, Turkisch peppers. I sowed them all at the same time and put the long tray on a heating pad. The tomatoes came up first and started getting leggy so I moved the whole set-up to a cooler room (the bed room) and moved the end with the tomato plants off the heating pad and the part with the peppers stayed warm on the pad. Everything is looking great now, just waiting for some true tomato leaves so I can put them in individual pots, the peppers are slower and will be potted up as soon as they also have real leaves.
I have a lamp above them on for about 12 hours a day, a grow lamp is on order but still not in so I'm using an ordinary bulb.
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You'll love the grow-lamp, Ina. We grew lettuce in the kitchen - just for fun!! = Tim
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Now then, you lot - after starting them, you've got to grow them on till plant-out time. All the guides say wait till you get the first flower truss. With decades of trying, I have to put mine out at about 6-8" without. It's some time before they get their first flowers in their bags - like about 12".
I notice that our garden centre plants that are in flower appear to be 'starved'. We grow to p/o stage, on gentle bottom heat, like 60deg, in a south facing lean-to.
So - what am I doing wrong? Or am I? = Tim
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Well Tim, I've got news for you. I never wait for the first flower truss, I just plant them out when it's time.
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- so how, and why should you aim for flowers - someone??= Tim
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Do you get good yields early enough - if so stick with what you're doing or experiment with the "expert" advice, which is presumably built around their growing conditions and facilities, which may be different from yours.
Tomato seed is cheap enough to experiment with and for the none F1 varieties dead easy to save (to make it free!!!)
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Showing off moment...
My toms (that you all told me to bin cos I'd started them to early) are very happy ickle plants in their second pots.
:D ;DTomatos are fab!! ;D :D
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.....that you all told me to bin....
I believe that you should withdraw this viscious accusation - I, and the vast majority of A4A members, have never suggested Solanaceaecide!!!!
Please see the picture of their cousins to the left and you can see that anyone suggesting such a thing must be heartless in the extreme!!!!
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Soz PC, not all of you...some...I've been told a million times not to exaggerate...
;D
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Too bad you retracted that statement about 'you all', I was just getting ready to have a go at you.
Second pot already? Not ready for a deep, 1 liter yoghurt container yet? Remember they stop growing a while after replanting but under the soil, beautiful things are happening.
I'm so happy for you that they are doing well, let 'them all' eat their words, you'll eat tomatoes.
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Yeah mystic, but all your cabbages died, now didn't they!!!!
Ten x
hehehe
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Do not mock their passing , Ten, am sad at the loss of so many seedlings, brave and true, who were cut down in their prime - well, who were sown a tad early actually...
Case in point - tomatos are hardly little thingys, and tend to be ok when you start em early (this is not the only time I've started em early on, so I guess that I know) but never tried cabbage before, and it did say on the packet, Jan to March, so I gave it a go - all dead now ( :-[ :-[).
Consider me told on all fronts...so you reckon 9" pots not gonna be big enough for HUGE root structure then ina? Maybe go for bigger n better? (50 of them!! where am I gonna put em all?)
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Hi Mystic,
It's not so much the size of the container as it is the depth.
50 plants? Ehmmmmmmmmm, I think you better buy shares in a yoghurt factory.
If you do use the narrow and tall 1 liter yoghurt or milk containers (holes in the bottom!), they will take up a lot less room than the same amount of 9" pots. Why don't you just do a selection and do the rest as you are used to? This way you can test what works best and.........let us know!
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This year, I'm using 1lt fresh juice cartons with the tops cut off - as they are square they fit really well two deep on the kitchen windowsill. I read (I think in Gardening News) that its reckoned that colder days and warmer nights make sturdier, less leggy plants, so I'm trying this with my tomato and basil seedlings this year - cool unheated windowsill during the day and pop back in the propogator at night.
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Ceri,
According to a table I found in a US book, tomatoes do not germinate below 10 degrees C and at 10C 82% germinate, but take 42 days!!!!
At 15 - 25 C the percentage is ~98% and they take 14 days at 15C and 6 days at 20-25
I'm not sure what happens if they are 15-20C daytime but 4C (fridge temp in salad compartment) at night.
Perhaps you are on the verge of a scientific breakthrough, and in future years members of this list will be quoting "Ceri's method" as the way to produce healthy toms!!
We expect nothing less than a scientific paper in "Nature" recording the results of your work!!! ;)
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I'm not doing this with poor defenceless seeds - but happy strongly growing seedlings that I was worried about getting leggy - I will make full report of my progress with Ceri's method (methinks if it works I'll be getting credit for someone else's idea though!!) Perhaps they'll name a tomato after me - one with enthusiastic, if haphazard habits would be perfect!!
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I'm glad to see that Solanaceae are getting the support they deserve (except for one notable area earlier)
There's a potato called Cherie, but that Mrs Blair's fault!!!
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At 4C at night they are probably going to go quite purple, Phil. Definitely sturdy though. Given that plants do most of their active nutrient uptake in the two hours either side of dawn there could be some other consequences. Optimum temperatures for tomatoes are, as you quote, around 15C-20C.
As they do not produce adventitious roots like tomatoes I've been trying to envisage why you would want to deep plant chilis and aubergines and not had any success. Can you enlighten me, Phil?
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Sorry, I have had limited experience/success with chilis and aubergines - they seem to start off ok but I never get decent fruiting results. Maybe the temperatures haven't been high enough when I tried - I didn't grow them last year
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Sounds like bad timing, Phil. From what I have read, if temperatures have been your problem, last year would have been the time to try them? Isn't 20/20 hindsight wonderful? Peppers and aubergines certainly do do better than tomatoes in high heat.
Two tips I could add are that peppers do not like high soil salt concentrations (the first symptom is bud drop) while aubergines set better where soil moisture is adequate, should you ever want to try again.
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Welcome back, John!! Thanks for your 2 notes.
1. It wasn't this year at the GC.
2. If I were to leave my toms in the propagating 'house 'till they had a flower truss, they would, as I say. be over 1' high, and spindly, and getting a bit pot-bound. That has never seemed a good ploy?? Oh, and I was always taught to space them on the bench so that leaves never touched?? = Tim
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If they are a bit spindly, Tim, then you could do use Ina's method- perhaps a couple as an experiment? However, as I said, the reasons are really economic, there is no noticeable difference in productivity as long as they are planted before 50% first flower open. Your spacing example is the same as the one I have always seen quoted.
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Thanks, John - up a bit early, aren't you?? = Tim
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Actually, Tim, I testing the old saying about early to bed, early to rise etc., etc.. I've got the health part taken care of but I'm still waiting for the wealth and wisdom!
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Early to rise (or is it to bed?) at 00:54???!!!!
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- that's about 5.54 his time, Phil? I've usually finished my hoeing by then in the summer! = Tim
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I'm five hours behind you, Tim, so it would have been 7:54, time to relax.
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Of course!! - I read it as your time that was listed. Silly me!`= Tim
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Now that you've nailed your colours to the mast (well put in a hyperlink to a picture of them anyway) all becomes clear!!