I started with three 12 cell module trays, one seed per cell, I reckon about 30 germinated well. I think I lost a couple when potting up and have given a few away so am prob 'down to' 25 - but I've only got 12 big pots and frankly that should be plenty!
Dark green's a good tip, italophile. Simon, I'll do one per pot.
I may actually put some outside with an honesty box if I can't see friends who'll take them!
I'm sure some people who've had trouble germinating or been too busy will be pleased to have some healthy plants at this stage.
25 litres is a biiig pot - over 5 gallons..... you may have room for two plants in one of those. I have three per growbag of 20 - 30 litres and one per 10 litre pot. Or plant Tagetes round the edges. You can never have too many tomatoes. Sauce. Soup. Chutney. Puree. Dried. You can even wait for them to go rotten and go into politics.
Tell a lie - they're 20 litres!! I'd previously tried 15 litre ones but found that they weren't quite big enough for a single tom plant. They've currently now got leeks in them until I've got some room in a raised bed...
You wouldn't want more than one plant per 20 litre pot. Depth of the pot is important, too, if they need staking. Nothing worse than an unstable tomato stake. As I know to my cost.
Ok, I'm not too worried (until I'm told otherwise) but I've noticed a few of my plants have got a slight yellow mottling of the leaves - e.g. the big leaf in the centre of this photo.
In practice, it's only on a few plants - and since I still need to cull about half of them, this might just help me decide which to get rid of as it's only affecting a few. I'd got a bit lazy and hadn't propped open my mini greenhouse for the last couple of days, given it was cooler / wetter. I wondered if they might have got overheated a bit, although they hadn't dried out and didn't look droopy.
Either way, the greenhouse is now rather full-to-bursting and I'm a bit worried the plants are getting a little crowded so I reckon, with warm weather on its way, now's probably the time to transfer them into their final pots and positions and that may help...
Cheers, Simon. Makes sense! Last year, I still had them indoors at this point as spring was so awful and they looked very sorry for themselves by comparison - but once they were in final pots/positions, as you say they picked up v well.
Does it stunt the growth or harm young tomato plants when you forget to water them and they droop over?
I have a few in small pots, looking just like the above photo from Bf206, and they've started soaking water up like mad. A couple of times I've forgot to water them or not realised how quickly they'd become dry, and the leaves have curled up and wilted, and some of the stems have even curved right over. Watering them and waiting a couple of hours seems to have cured them on those occasions, but does this do any long term harm?
If you do that when the fruit are forming, you are likely to end up with blossom end rot, where there is a black flattened patch at the flower end of the fruit. This is because the plant is unable to take up enough calcium because of the lack of water.
You say they are in small pots. i grow mine in florists buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. I dont let the plants dry out so that they droop.On a very hot day, that may mean watering twice a day, once a day in normal conditions, less in overcast or raining.
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I started with three 12 cell module trays, one seed per cell, I reckon about 30 germinated well. I think I lost a couple when potting up and have given a few away so am prob 'down to' 25 - but I've only got 12 big pots and frankly that should be plenty!
Dark green's a good tip, italophile. Simon, I'll do one per pot.
I may actually put some outside with an honesty box if I can't see friends who'll take them!
I'm sure some people who've had trouble germinating or been too busy will be pleased to have some healthy plants at this stage.
25 litres is a biiig pot - over 5 gallons..... you may have room for two plants in one of those. I have three per growbag of 20 - 30 litres and one per 10 litre pot. Or plant Tagetes round the edges. You can never have too many tomatoes. Sauce. Soup. Chutney. Puree. Dried. You can even wait for them to go rotten and go into politics.
You wouldn't want more than one plant per 20 litre pot. Depth of the pot is important, too, if they need staking. Nothing worse than an unstable tomato stake. As I know to my cost.
Ok, I'm not too worried (until I'm told otherwise) but I've noticed a few of my plants have got a slight yellow mottling of the leaves - e.g. the big leaf in the centre of this photo.
In practice, it's only on a few plants - and since I still need to cull about half of them, this might just help me decide which to get rid of as it's only affecting a few. I'd got a bit lazy and hadn't propped open my mini greenhouse for the last couple of days, given it was cooler / wetter. I wondered if they might have got overheated a bit, although they hadn't dried out and didn't look droopy.
Either way, the greenhouse is now rather full-to-bursting and I'm a bit worried the plants are getting a little crowded so I reckon, with warm weather on its way, now's probably the time to transfer them into their final pots and positions and that may help...
Cheers, Simon. Makes sense! Last year, I still had them indoors at this point as spring was so awful and they looked very sorry for themselves by comparison - but once they were in final pots/positions, as you say they picked up v well.
Does it stunt the growth or harm young tomato plants when you forget to water them and they droop over?
I have a few in small pots, looking just like the above photo from Bf206, and they've started soaking water up like mad. A couple of times I've forgot to water them or not realised how quickly they'd become dry, and the leaves have curled up and wilted, and some of the stems have even curved right over. Watering them and waiting a couple of hours seems to have cured them on those occasions, but does this do any long term harm?
If you do that when the fruit are forming, you are likely to end up with blossom end rot, where there is a black flattened patch at the flower end of the fruit. This is because the plant is unable to take up enough calcium because of the lack of water.
You say they are in small pots. i grow mine in florists buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. I dont let the plants dry out so that they droop.On a very hot day, that may mean watering twice a day, once a day in normal conditions, less in overcast or raining.