Starting tomato plants

[Bmyers]

My wife wanted to try starting her tomato plants from seed this year. So, she setup a grow "shelf". She has cups with dirt and seeds, she waters and has a grow light that runs 12 hours a day.

Well this weekend, half dozen of them started coming up through the dirt. So, her experiment appears to be a success. She will keep them growing in the house for the next few weeks and then it will about time for them to head outside.

[Erich]

I've done it that way before: started them in our SW-facing picture windows (here in NM) in January in little peat pots in a plastic greenhouse tray. As usual with tomato seeds, I got something like 110% germination ( ) and had to weed them out (always a hassle - you'll get one pot with three great ones and a couple stragglers, and another pot with one straggler only). Planted them in larger pots and then later outside - and found that they really didn't take off anywhere near the way greenhouse-purchased plants did. (Also found out for certain that tomatoes are just a no-go for me unless I give them more attention than I can spare: I appear to live at the precise altitude of Sphinx Moth Heaven, so tomato worms just thrive here. )

So, while my couple years experimenting with tomatoes from seed showed me that I'm better off buying plants, it's great your wife is doing the experiment: I hope she gets fruitful results!

[bdcochran]

I kept trying with outdoor planting of seeds all winter. Some would come up and then die. One strain and I don't known which produced healthy plants and I kept transplanting. The first few cherry tomatoes will be picked this week. Next year, I will wait until the first small plants are in the nurseries around here.It has been a very long time since I was able to buy a pony pack of tomato seedlings for $1.

[Bmyers]

I've done it that way before: started them in our SW-facing picture windows (here in NM) in January in little peat pots in a plastic greenhouse tray. As usual with tomato seeds, I got something like 110% germination ( ) and had to weed them out (always a hassle - you'll get one pot with three great ones and a couple stragglers, and another pot with one straggler only). Planted them in larger pots and then later outside - and found that they really didn't take off anywhere near the way greenhouse-purchased plants did. (Also found out for certain that tomatoes are just a no-go for me unless I give them more attention than I can spare: I appear to live at the precise altitude of Sphinx Moth Heaven, so tomato worms just thrive here. )

So, while my couple years experimenting with tomatoes from seed showed me that I'm better off buying plants, it's great your wife is doing the experiment: I hope she gets fruitful results!

Tomatoes is one thing that just seems to grow crazy around here. Last year we had somewhere between 3-5 volunteer plants along with the ones we actually planted. Two of the volunteer plants out performed everything else. We had so many tomatoes, that we couldn't even give them all away.

So, it will be interesting to see how these plants that she has raised does. Our weather has been so messed up this year. Record lows, record highs, warm, in the 70s for a week, then in the 20s the next week. The plants/trees don't know what to do. Yesterday it 74 degrees. Today, 44 degrees with strong winds, feels like 33 degrees with the wind-chill.

Just wish the weather would make up its mind.

[Erich]

Oh, that's awesome. My mom's been talking about the yo-yo weather where she is, too.

There's two things money can't buy - true love and homegrown tomatoes!

[Bmyers]

An update on the growing experiment. She has been successful in getting every cup to sprout.

So know, we just wait till the first week of April and out go the plants. Typically, once April hits, we are done with the frost. Yet we have tarps on standby just in case.

[Erich]

Yay; that's great!

[Bmyers]

Well, if everything goes as planned, the plants will be going into the ground this coming weekend.

[Bmyers]

They went into the ground and they are loving the sunlight.

[Erich]

That's terrific! While we're still having freezing temps most nights, I saw my first sphinx moth (tomato worm butterfly) last night - boo!