This corona gardening project is making me do things I thought I was incapable of
After weeks of saying I wouldn’t, I brutally thinned the indoor tomato seedlings today. A few weeks ago, I had split some of the starter pods on one tray to save both seedlings where they looked strong, rather than kill the weakest ones. Sigh.
Interestingly, the ones I shifted to solo cups outdoors (it’s 60-80F here) have not done anywhere as well as the ones that stayed indoors. Even though the latter were 2-3 to a pod, they grew lush.
Any thoughts on why? Just indoor vs outdoor? I also added some other potting soil to the solo cups, I thought it might have been that vs just the fertile starter mix indoors. I’ve been feeding both with liquid stuff periodically.
In other news, the other half of the papaya seeds I had saved from an eaten papaya weeks ago (planted half outside, 1 seedling) have gone nuts indoors. Fun! Apparently you have to wait for them to grow so you can keep both a male and a female plant.
And I finally have a few butternut squash seedlings - I started some indoors after none of the direct plantings took.
Note to self, start everything indoors, no matter how good the weather is outside.
As always, I don’t have answers; just more questions; is it 60-80 24/7, or is that the highs? I just put my seedlings out a few days ago, because that’s when nights were above 50.
My wife has started herbs in the garden. I’m doing sprouts and microgreens in the kitchen. Nothing fancy - sprouts in canning jars and microgreens on papertowel. Elementary school science fair stuff that works a treat.
@shrinkrap, I’m very impressed with your gardening skills, as well as your greenhouse. I’ll post pics of my husband’s projects tomorrow, regarding plant starts.
I know you mentioned ordering your greenhouse kit from up here in PNW, if I’m not mistaken. Would you mind sending me the name and size of your greenhouse set up? Think I’d like to gift one to H, and our yard is large enough to accommodate one easily. TIA. He seemed quite excited when I mentioned it to him.
I had 2 pots that I started some old tomato seeds in 3 -4 weeks ago. A few days ago I tried moving the seedlings from one of the pots to give them room. The transplanted ones all died. I have the 2nd pot with many seedlings. Should I leave them crowded in that pot til its warm enough to put them into my raised beds or try again to separate them. I’m in connecticut, it’s still not warm here yet, tho I am setting the plants outside every day. I’ve never grown seedlings before:(. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Were they under the sun instantly after the transplant? Usually, I choose to do it late afternoon, so they have a night to recover.
From your photo, I think you can still wait a bit, until the first pair of real leaves are bigger (the first pair straight leaves do not count), then transplant in a slightly bigger pot individually, if you don’t want the roots to tangle together. Try to put much of the lower part of the stem deeper in the soil, the stem will become roots and you will avoid tall “leggy” plant. Add some very dilute fertiliser when watering. In my experience, tomato seedlings grow better and faster with gradual change of pots according to their size than putting the very young seedlings in the bed instantly.
I grow my tomatoes seedlings indoors from seeds under light until they have at least 5 or 6 true leaves. For my own rule, I will plant them outdoor when night temperature is at least 15ºC / 60ºF or more, one week before they are transplant, I leave them outdoor in the day time for them to adjust. Tomato dislikes cold temperature when they are young, I had in the past planted the young plants too early in April (I’m in zone 7b), the dip in temperature in early May created a shock to the growth of the plant that they couldn’t recover (slow growth, non productive plants).
I’m talking only about my experience, I’m sure the expert gardeners here have more input.
I’m a first-time grower, but I’ll share my current experience because it’s quite similar.
I used seed trays, and the seeds were old so I assumed (based on everything I read) that germination rate would be low even with a few seeds per cell.
Well, no. Many germinated and looked healthy, so I split up two of the four trays (carefully) into solo cups with potting soil plus liquid fertilizer. Got tired so left the other two trays.
The solo cup seedlings are still alive, but did not thrive like the ones left alone. The ones left alone grew very well, and then instead of trying to separate them as with the earlier trays, I accepted that they needed to be thinned, and snipped off all but one seedling in each cell. A few days later, the remaining seedlings are thriving.
The seedling roots get entangled very fast, so I don’t know if you’ll actually be able to separate them later if you want to save multiples rather than thinning to the strongest one.
If you want to try again to separate a couple (without disturbing the strongest ones), the advice I read was to do it when the soil is dry and to hold them by the leaves, not the stem, while moving
Sorry if this was all obvious, but it’s all new to me!
Thanks! My seeds were also ancient and turned out surprisingly well.
After reading your post, I have to decide whether to try to separate them or sacrifice all for one…
Thar was a great experiment! I usually only do a few seeds per cell of things like peppers and tomatoes, then thin them. Even THAT leads to way more plants than I need.
The entangled roots comment reminds me of a general tip for anyone buying those 6 packs from a nursery that have excess plants rather than 1 per cell. This only works for some kinds of veggies, definitely wouldn’t do this on peppers/tomatoes/eggplants, but it particularly works for onions/scallions where those 6 packs can contain up to 4 per cell. The more rootbound and developed they are, the better.
Take the dirt + plant out. Dunk the dirt in water and rinse all the dirt off. Roots will be really easy to untangle now. Plant each in the dirt. They are a lot more tolerant of this process than one might expect.
Most of my seedlings were a dismal failure this year, partially due to some neglect on my part but I think also partially due to a poor brand of seed starting pods. I have a few sad pepper and basil plants that I am hoping to pot up, but I’m also considering starting a fresh tray this week. Better late than never, right? And at least my garlic is looking FABULOUS!
Have decided gardening is just plain heartbreaking…even worse than NFL football
Good job on the garlic - there may be a shortage this year, I’ve heard. Luckily, as always, we have a healthy crop growing, as well as plenty to tide us over until harvest. We share a lot too, in braided form, usually. H learned from his dad, thankfully.
“Have decided gardening is just plain heartbreaking…even worse than NFL football ”
Maybe for the same reasons it can be so rewarding. Its certainly not as boring as football. Sorry. It’s mostly rewarding for me.
But…Why are alliums so hard for me? The garlic are doing betterm longer, in 5 gallon buckets this year, but a few of them are starting to lean over, which I suspect is due to some kind if root problem from a combination of heat and moisture. I think if was 94 here yesterday.
And at least my garlic is looking FABULOUS!
