When to start growing tomatoes indoors
Complete Guide to Starting Tomatoes Indoors: Germination to Transplanting - The Rusted Garden 2013
welcome to the rest of garden today I'm
going to show you the entire process for
planting tomatoes indoors from getting
them into your C trays to getting them
into your transplant cups and I have
tomatoes that have been growing for a
different amounts of time so you can
just see the whole process these are my
tomato seeds that I collect from my
garden I also sell these you can find
them on my blog and I'm going to start
well I'm going to use Kentucky orange
for the example today this is a seed
cell that I've already pre moistened and
pre-packed and you can see how to do
that on other videos quickly you can
save your cells from your other plants
that you buy and the bigger space that
you have the more room you have a root
growth and root growth of the tomatoes
and that you know allows you to keep the
tomato in these containers longer but
most of the seed starting cells look
like this you can grow your tomatoes in
here for about four to five weeks and
four to five weeks will look like that
and then you have to get them out this
is the process that I use always put in
two to three seeds even if you don't
need all those plants you don't want to
be sitting around waiting for our seeds
to germinate and they don't germinate
this gives you better odds and I put
them all just into the corner one two
three one two and three and of course I
would do that whole area get the ones I
spilled once they're in the seed cell I
push them down about a quarter of an
inch
put some starting mix on top break a
popsicle stick put on the date three
three put on some initials ko Kentucky
orange and then it would go in there
once your seeds are in the starting mix
between five and ten days you will get
your your seeds will germinate and
sprout this is a borghese tomato I
planted it on 224 and you can see that
they have sprouted tomato seeds will
sprout at different times but if they
don't sprout by sprout by the tenth day
than something happened with germination
so after a week you'll have your
seedlings coming up and you want to make
sure if you're using fluorescent lights
I talked about this often is you want
the light to be one to two inches above
your tomato seedlings or they will get
Lugg leggy and that leggy process is
when the stems get really long and the
plant sort of droop over another trick
you can use as if it's warm out about 40
degrees and sunny when your tomatoes
first germinate they're protected
against the Sun put this outside in the
full Sun like this for an hour to let
them feel what the Sun feels like and
that will help them establish if your
Tomatoes stay indoors and don't see the
Sun these are tomatoes have been grown
about five weeks they don't have
resistance against the Sun so if you put
them out in full Sun you would actually
burn the leaves so you have to acclimate
these Tomatoes slowly to the outdoors
over a week process so you get your
seedlings in about a week in four to
five weeks you will have tomatoes that
look like this and they're pretty good
pretty sturdy but you're going to need
to move them out of these cells let's
start with these and in two cups I use
styrofoam cups which aren't the most
green resource that you could use but
they work they're inexpensive I like
that you can write on them you can track
what your Tomatoes are and I do recycle
them year after year make sure you poke
holes in your cups and then you'll
notice in here I have tomatoes that have
just a single plant they have two plants
if all your tomato seeds come up I would
recommend thinning them down to one
plant it just makes transplanting easier
if to come up you can unthread them but
you do run the risk the more damage that
you do to the roots the greater risk you
have of transplant shock so all you do
is pinch out from the bottom gently a
plug and you can see the roots get your
cup your starting mix and I make a big
circle this mix is pre-moistened drop in
your tomato bury it a little bit above
where the starting mix level was so that
you are covering some of the root look
press it in and that's your transplant
they should grow in here indoors for a
week to let them get over any kind of
transplant shock and then they'll spend
another week getting acclimated to the
outdoors move that out of the way if you
have two plans you can gently break the
roots apart and separate them but be
careful to plants usually can get away
with and they don't have any transplant
shock so make sure I'm putting the right
using the right container so if you have
to separate to do the same process
gently pull them apart make the hole
deep enough so that you can put the
whole length of the root in like this
and then backfill around it you want the
roots spaced out and you can do that by
collapsing the circle the hole you made
and you want to fill it up
pack it in gently this one I'll do in a
bit let's move that now here you can see
a large tomato that's doing very well a
small tomato I'm just going to get rid
of that and plant that and over here
this is where it gets tricky there are 3
Tomatoes and when you have 3 Tomatoes
the roots really intertwine you can try
to break it apart by tapping the root
ball and then unthreading the plants now
these three plants are going to be more
susceptible to transplant shock than if
you just put a single plan in or you
break two apart but that process is the
same - it's up to you but keep in mind
how many tomatoes do you really need in
your garden again make a hole pretty
deep drop the roots in vary some of the
stem collapse the earth around them put
in some more press them in and your
tomatoes have been transplanted into
crops or containers they'll need to grow
in those containers for about a week so
that they can form stronger roots get
over the transplant shock and then they
have to be acclimated to the outdoors
this year I'm using a shelving or a
shelf greenhouse unit to keep my plants
um in first is just sitting them outside
but the acclimation process is basically
giving them low doses of Sun for about a
week until they sort of toughen up and
can handle it once this is filled with
my transplants I water from the bottom
in twenty or thirty minutes whatever
waters not absorbed I pull out and then
user will just go into my grill closet I
hope you enjoyed this video please check
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