How to plant tomatoes for seedlings

The debate about how to properly grow tomato seedlings has not subsided for decades. Each breeder and gardener has their own planting rules, which they adhere to from year to year. What kind of planting tomato seedlings can be considered correct, what you need to consider when choosing seeds, dishes and soil for tomatoes, as well as how to care for seedlings – in this article.

How to plant tomatoes for seedlings

Growing tomatoes consists of several stages, one of which is sowing seeds for seedlings and caring for them. The goal of any gardener or summer resident is to get a good harvest of tasty and fragrant tomatoes. In order to achieve an excellent result, you will have to go through several stages:

1. Choose seeds and varieties of tomatoes.
2. Buy or build containers for tomato seedlings.
3. Mix soil.
4. Prepare seeds for planting.
5. Sow the seeds in the ground.
6. Dive tomatoes.
7. Prepare seedlings for transfer to a permanent place.

Each of the stages of growing tomato seedlings needs to be told in more detail.

Selection of tomato seeds

First of all, the owner of the site must decide on the variety of tomatoes. In this case, several factors must be taken into account at once:

• Ripening time for tomatoes. So, for open ground it is better to prefer early ripe and medium varieties of tomatoes, and late tomatoes are also suitable for greenhouses.
• The height of the bushes. As a rule, tall tomatoes are grown in greenhouses or greenhouses – there they save space and give good yields. While in the beds it is more convenient to take care of undersized tomatoes, because they do not have to be tied up on trellises, protected from wind and drafts, regularly pinched and pinched.
• Region where tomatoes will be grown, is also very important in choosing a variety. There are tomatoes selected specifically for the climate of Siberia or the Urals. Such varieties will not be able to develop normally in the hot south, because they were developed for a humid and cool climate. Also, heat-loving tomato varieties will not give a good harvest in cold regions – late blight will spoil the plants, they will die from night frosts or wither away from lack of sun.
• From that in a greenhouse or outdoors tomatoes will be grown, a lot also depends. Greenhouse crops are more capricious, they love a humid microclimate, regular care, a comfortable stable temperature, but they please the owner with abundant harvests of beautiful fruits. But garden tomatoes are less capricious, their fruits are more fragrant and tastier than greenhouse ones, these tomatoes tolerate low night temperatures and a slight drought well.
• Not only taste, but also the appearance of the fruit plays an important role in cultivar selection. After all, there are tomatoes for pickling, they are medium in size, rounded in shape, with a dense peel. There are also tomatoes intended for salads, they are distinguished by their large size, sugary pulp, excellent taste and smell. To decorate dishes, they use cocktail varieties or cherry tomatoes, which resemble cherries: they are just as small and round. Another distinguishing feature is the color of the fruit. After all, tomatoes are not only red, there are even black and purple tomatoes, not to mention the more standard green and yellow fruits.

All this needs to be analyzed at the preparatory stage. Only having decided on their capabilities and requirements for tomatoes, they choose a specific variety.

It’s good if the ripening dates for tomatoes are different – then the family will be able to eat fresh vegetables from mid-summer to the end of autumn.

When buying seeds via the Internet, you need to pay attention to the number of seeds in one bag: there are professional and amateur packaging of seeds. For amateurs, tomatoes with 10-12 seeds in a bag are suitable, and for professional cultivation, you need to purchase large lots – from 500 to 1000 pieces per package.

Dishes for seedlings of tomatoes

How can you grow tomato seedlings without pots and boxes? Tomato containers are sold in a huge assortment, you can find ordinary plastic pots, and wooden boxes, and peat glasses, tablets, cups with a removable bottom, snails and much more.

In order not to spend extra money, containers for tomato seedlings can be easily found on your farm or built from improvised means. After all, everyone can put together a box of unnecessary boards, what can we say about “snails” or “diapers” that are rolled from dense polyethylene.

Planting tomato seedlings is necessary only in sterile dishes. Therefore, even purchased brand new cups will have to be disinfected. To do this, it is convenient to use a strong solution of manganese: the seedling container is simply immersed in liquid for several minutes, after which the dishes are allowed to dry.

As cups, you can use cut tetra packs from juice or milk, glasses from yogurt or children’s curds. In general, everything that is in the house will do. The exception is metal utensils – it is wrong to grow seedlings in such containers.

Soil Composition

Prepared and sterile containers must be filled with soil for seedlings. It must be remembered that tomato seedlings should be planted in slightly acidic loose soil that can retain moisture.

The soil obtained by combining two parts of humus and one part of black soil is ideal for tomatoes. If there is no fertile land on the site, it can be replaced with any purchased mixture for seedlings.

Another “recipe” for a mixture suitable for tomatoes: humus, sand and sod land, which can be found in the garden under trees or in a weedy area. To disinfect the soil and prevent weeds from germinating along with seedlings, you can use one of the following methods:

• freezing the ground in the freezer or outside in winter
• calcining the soil in the oven or in the microwave
• watering the earth poured in a container with boiling water
• impregnation of the soil with a solution of manganese (done a few days before sowing the seeds so that they do not burn).

There must be holes in the bottoms for water drainage; glasses and boxes should be installed better than stands to ensure better ventilation. The drainage layer at the bottom of the container is very effective; it can be laid out from small pebbles or broken shells.

Preparing tomato seeds

Of course, the seed material of good agricultural firms will sprout even without prior preparation. After all, such seeds go through several stages of processing: from disinfection to hardening and feeding.

But homemade seeds, collected with your own hands or donated by neighbors, must be pre-treated before planting in the soil:

1. Inspect the seeds and discard uneven, deformed, darkened specimens.
2. Dip the tomato seeds in salted water, mix with a spoon and remove any seeds that have floated to the surface. These seeds are empty, they will not germinate.
3. Disinfect the seeds in one of a variety of ways. One of these disinfection methods is soaking tomato seeds in water with the addition of hydrogen peroxide (100 ml of hydrogen peroxide per 3 ml of water).
4. After disinfection, you can proceed to germination. Before this, you can still treat the seed with growth stimulants or place them for a day in an aqueous solution of wood ash (a few tablespoons of ash per liter jar of boiled water). You need to germinate the seeds on a damp cloth or cosmetic cotton sponges. This step will take several days.
5. Germinated seeds can be placed in the refrigerator for a day – this will harden the seedlings, facilitate its acclimatization after diving and transplanting into the ground.

Many gardeners do not germinate tomato seeds, believing that fragile sprouts are very easy to damage when planting.

How to plant seeds in the ground

If tomato seeds have been previously germinated, they must be transferred to the soil very carefully. It is very convenient to use tweezers for this. Each seed must be placed vertically, directing the sprout upwards. From above, the seeds are carefully sprinkled with dry earth and do not press down. It is not necessary to water the seedlings, you can sprinkle the ground from a spray gun with warm water settled during the day – this will somewhat compact the soil.

For swollen or dry seeds, any method of sowing will do. It is convenient to sow seeds in wooden boxes or general containers in pre-prepared grooves. To do this, draw stripes on the soil with a wooden stick or a blunt knife: a depth of about centimeter, the distance between the lines is about 4 cm.

Tomato seeds are placed in the grooves at intervals of 2-2,5 cm. A more dense planting will cause the seedlings to be weak and frail, the plants will not have enough nutrients and moisture.

Ideally, if the gardener does not have to irrigate the seedlings before the first shoots appear. In extreme cases, it is allowed to irrigate the dried-up earth a little from the spray gun.

Seeds are sprinkled with a centimeter layer of soil and compacted a little, pressing down with your fingers. Now the boxes need to be covered with cellophane and put away in a warm place for several days (7-10).

When green shoots begin to appear, the film must be removed immediately, otherwise the seedlings may “reproach” and turn yellow. The air temperature at all stages of growing tomato seedlings should be at least 23 degrees.

Tomato dive

It is better to plant seedlings of tomatoes with a dive stage. Tomatoes have a fairly strong root system, so they tolerate transplanting to a new place well. The dive stage is necessarily necessary in the case when tomato seeds were sown in a common container.

Also, diving helps to harden the seedlings a little, making them more squat and strong. At this stage, you can slightly reduce the growth of too elongated tomato seedlings – the plants are simply buried in the soil along the cotyledon leaves.

Before diving, tomato seedlings should be plentifully watered with warm water. Plants should be removed with a knife or a small metal spatula. It is necessary to try to capture not only the plant itself, but also a clod of earth between the roots.

If weak or damaged tomatoes are found, they should be discarded. During a dive, the strongest and strongest plants are selected. Plant tomatoes in separate containers, one or two plants in each. If the method of planting in pairs is chosen, at the stage of formation of the fourth or fifth leaflet, you will need to pinch a weaker tomato, and tie the stems of both plants with a nylon thread. In this way, it will be possible to grow stronger seedlings, which will give a bountiful harvest.

While the plants are acclimatizing, it is better to use artificial lighting or place the seedlings on dimly lit windowsills.

Tomato seedling care

Growing seedlings on your own, you can be sure of its quality. But for a good result, you have to work a little:

1. Water seedlings of tomatoes only with soft water. It can be settled, boiled, melted water, which is heated or kept near heating appliances. Water temperature for watering seedlings should be about 20 degrees.
2. It is not always necessary to fertilize seedlings. Tomatoes may have enough nutrients, especially if high-quality seeds were used, they were fed, fertile soil with a balanced composition was prepared for seedlings. The lack of trace elements will tell the sluggish appearance of tomatoes, drooping or yellowed leaves, marble spots on the foliage, a weak and thin stem. In this case, you need to apply top dressing, after diluting the fertilizer in the water for irrigation.

   

3. Before taking out to a permanent place, seedlings should be slightly hardened off. 10-14 days before planting, they begin to open the window in the room, later they take out the boxes for a few minutes on the balcony, and then you can leave the tomatoes on the street, shading the plants from the scorching sun.

You can plant seedlings in a greenhouse or in a garden bed when 6-7 true leaves have appeared on each plant, there are first buds, tomatoes have reached a height of more than 15 cm, have a strong stem and bright green foliage.

The final stage

The result of the work on growing tomato seedlings will be planting plants in a permanent place. Before transferring, the seedlings do not need to be watered for several days, after which the earth in the cup will shrink, and the tomato will be easily removed after turning the container over.

Excessive soil moisture will only harm the tomato, it will be more difficult for the plant to get used to the new environment.

It remains to regularly water the tomatoes and fertilize – and a great harvest is simply guaranteed! And we have already figured out how to properly plant tomatoes for seedlings.