Starting Tomato Seedlings - Getting a head start on your Heirloom Open Pollinated Seedlings
Tips, Tricks
In most of the lower growing zones it’s nearly time to start your tomato seedlings indoors to get a head start on the season. Today I am going to give you some tips and tricks to get the most out of your tomatoes this season without having to spend a lot. 1. When do you start? Starting seeds too early is a common affliction almost all gardeners suffer from. It’s a fine line getting an good head start on the season and putting a plant through too much transplant shock resulting in losing too much of your season. Here in zone 3 I can't really afford to lose too much time over transplant shock. I start my tomatoes in the third week of March. This gives me enough time to get them started without them getting too large inside. If you are not in Zone three then you will want to find two pieces of information. The first is your last expected frost date. The last frost date will let you know the earliest you will be able to get your plants outside. The second bit of information you will need to find is when you should show your seeds. You can usually find this on the back of the seed package or if you don’t have a seed pack there are plenty of online resources that will help you. 2. Save your own seeds: Now that we know when to start our tomato plants its time to find seeds. In the fall I took some of my favourite tomatoes and saved the seeds. I have been on a hunt to find my favourite tomatoes and last year finally found them. So I decided to save my own seeds and it was very simple to do and it saves you some money. If you do plan on saving your own seeds its important to know if you have an open pollinated variety. Open pollinated varieties are more likely to have similar features in the fruit from year to year however they tend to evolve over time and change characteristics. This is due to the chances that a different variety of tomato may pollinate your crop. F1 or closed pollinated varieties may end up producing tomatoes in the next generation that may not be similar to the ones you saved the seeds from. If you are alright with that then have at it! If you don't have seeds make sure to order or trade for them a few weeks in advance to give them time to be mailed. My favourite place to get new tomato seed is Baker Creek Seeds at rareseeds.com. They have a wide variety of heirloom seeds with great descriptions. 3. Chose appropriate varieties for your growing zone and garden location: We have all dreamt of that 2 (~900 gram) pound tomato however some of our gardens just are not meant for them. With short seasons or gardens that get a little more shade small or medium bodied tomatoes are probably your best bet for an abundant successful harvest. I have a 100-120 day season so I select seeds that are 90 days to harvest or less. This gives me the best chance to harvest the tomatoes while out running the first frost. 4. Next its potting size. Now that we have the seeds and its time to plant lets pick a container. I generally start with smaller containers and move to the next size of pot as the roots start to show up along the sides of the container. I repeat this generally until I get to a pot size of 1- 2 liters (1/2 US gallon). When I repot the tomatoes I place the plant right at the bottom of the new pot and remove the branches and leaves that will be below the soil level. Tomatoes will put out new roots from the main stalk. A larger deeper root system will help the plant have access to more nutrients and water. This will help you conserve water in the summer again saving you money. 5. Growing indoors. If you have a south facing window you can grow your seedlings there and rotate them every few days to keep them from leaning. If not CFL bulbs from any major box stores will do a great job. I try to keep the tomato seedlings as close to the light to avoid the plants from getting too lanky. 6. Watering and fertilizing Generally I recommend watering from the bottom. This helps keep insect and disease problems down while encouraging the roots to push to the bottom of the container. I use a soil mix made of 1 part absorbent soilless potting mix and 1 part compost or vermiculture. This mix provides more than enough nutrients to the plants while they are growing inside. If you notice any changes in leaf colours its most commonly a deficiency in Nitrogen Phosphorus or Potassium. Giving the plants a weak organic fertilizer and you should notice an improvement in the new leaves.
Comments
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Hi Charlie , So happy to have found your channel . last year I started my tomatoes too early and they were so leggy by the time I put them out. They did okay but not as well as the ones I started later. So what does one do that has not learned a lesson................They start them even earlier this year. I saw someone local ( Southern Vt, ) Growing tomato shrubs with some serious results, so I'm trying it again. The secret according to her is to get them going the first of the year and prune , prune , prune re potting every time they are cut. She has 5 by 5 raised beds and plants one plant per bed buried very deeply and then uses light weights to bring down the branches and then covers them with soil. She gets 400 plus tomatoes per plant and cans a crazy amount of food.. I'm going for it this year. lol . Will let you know how this works out. Might be something to try.
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a question I always wondered about was the number of days stated on the package of seeds. Does the days start you plant the seeds? is it from the day the seedling emerge? or is it when it's planted out in the garden. I'm in zone 5 so I too try for the shortest time.
thanks,
Tim -
So informative thanks!
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Can I keep tomato plant indoor if it's bright enough? No direct sunlight but super bright room.
Also, is tomato plants annual or perrinial?
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Another place that might be worth checking out for seeds is https://heritageharvestseed.com/ They have over 200 varieties of heirloom tomato seeds, 90 heirloom been seeds plus many more heirloom veggies, herbs, and flowers. They are based in Manitoba and have very reasonable shipping costs. They are in zone 3b or 4 (can't quite tell on the map) so seeds should be well adapted to our climate. I haven't used them myself yet but will be ordering from them soon.
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I use bakers creek too, Try http://www.tomatogrowers.com/ they have a great selection probably the biggest I have seen in a long time..
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thanks dude
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I've already started them, but I'm fearing this spring might be too cold again.
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Really well done Stephen! The only thing I would had, is that by selecting your best tomato (or what ever heirloom seed you want to save) from the most resistant and best producing plant, over the years makes a special variety best adapted to your region and climate.
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OT question:
I had many tomatoes prev season in my 5G container but they were all small, bigger than cherry tomatoes but no way a full size tomatoes.
I know that container tomatoes suppose to be small but I saw many videos of full size container tomatoes on youtube. so my question is - Are you pruning flowers off the plants to divert all the energy to the few tomatoes? if so how many flowers do you tend to pinch off(percent?)?
Should I pinch off some pepper flowers as well? -
It is time to start your tomatoes indoors! It is a fun and simple process to get yourself ready for spring! Check out just how easy!
#tomato #tomatoes #seedstarting #organicseeds #organictomatoes #startingtomatoes #tomatoseedling #pottingsoil #organic #organicgardening #gardening #openpollinated #heirloom
http://youtu.be/scnSA81NDEs -
To tell you the truth I never grow my plants (even as seedlings) indoors, no need for hardening off, I just start them in the balcony and let the sun do the job.
When it was cold (3 weeks ago) I put all the seedlings inside the house at night (they're all in easy to move containers).
As I live in a sub tropical country it's already 28C temp with full sun here. so I just leave them outside.
My tomatoes are already 7~ inch and having flower buds, which I removed ;).
Anyway good luck with your tomatoes.
My pepper plants are very small in comparison, they grow so slow! -
I used the tomato covers that are filled with water to get my plants in the ground as early as 4 weeks before the first frost. They worked well for the danger of growing in buffalo NY. Here in Jamaica I don't have that worry. But if you have a short growing season it helps a great deal to cover them for early planting. They grow slow and establish a good root system with the early planting and cool weather.
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I experiment with couple of things winter of 2013.
1. Collected seeds of store bought hothouse tomatoes. Grow them in December, having 4-5 smaller size tomatoes. (Open pollinated)
2. Started same seeds indoors at the start of season, I had a better result but first week of September 14 snow and below freezing temperatures in Calgary killed almost everything.
This year I am transferring almost everything to raised beds, Kratky system and may include hydroponics.
I transfer my plants during the day when temperature is 7C or more and bring them inside in the evening and never suffered transfer shock.
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The major enemy for anyone starting seeds indoors, is the fungus gnat. From my understanding and current experience, fungus gnats like and are attracted to organic material like compost and very wet soil. This is why I am currently experimenting with germinating my seeds in coco coir and a little bit of worm castings. From what I have seen so far, the gnat problem is gone for the coco coir and castings medium, but still exist for those plants that are growing in compost. What are your thoughts?
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I always thought that feeding your plants fertilizer will turn theyellowing leaves green and that is how you know hat you fixed the problem, but you mentioned that it wont turn the yellowing leaves green, but rather you have to look at the new leaves to see if you fixed the problem or not. Is that correct?
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great vid
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Thank you very much! Was really good advice as always my friend:) Best of luck with your seeds and we'll be doing ours in a few weeks!
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So when is our last frost date Stephen as a fellow Albertan I would be interested in knowing ? I also was figuring on starting my seeds around the 3rd week of march , oh and was thinking of transplanting out side after may 18th
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Great video Stephen. You make great points on bottom watering. I learned something new today! :) Thanks for the tip. I agree with you on the medium and small variety tomatoes. I prefer plum and cherry tomatoes varieties for salads because I don't have to waste time slicing big tomatoes into small pieces.
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