Tomatoes from seed?

[User4960]

A lot of gd advice here!

Now it may be time to make sure you have their place in your garden good and prepared for them come planting time.

Soil, cage, and in your case up north, plastic on the ground, maybe even a light reflecting white plastic screen for the north side

 

[Joel_BC]

My Early Girl seeds sat there, in their very nice moist seedling soil, and for 10 days or so didn't germinate at all... until I put an electric heating pad under the tray. Germination then began within 24 hours. Some seeds have taken longer, after that point, though. Some have taken 48, 72 hours or longer.

The extra heat was definitely needed. More so than with the tomato varieties I've started before, it seems.

All seeds in our house are under fluorescent lights, with ambient home heat tending to hover around 70* F. The lights do provide some heat. It's enough for lettuce seeds, pepper seeds (bell and hot), and for bunching-onion seeds.

 

[ORChick]

My Early Girl seeds sat there, in their very nice moist seedling soil, and for 10 days or so didn't germinate at all... until I put an electric heating pad under the tray. Germination then began within 24 hours. Some seeds have taken longer, after that point, though. Some have taken 48, 72 hours or longer.

The extra heat was definitely needed. More so than with the tomato varieties I've started before, it seems.

All seeds in our house are under fluorescent lights, with ambient home heat tending to hover around 70* F. The lights do provide some heat. It's enough for lettuce seeds, pepper seeds (bell and hot), and for bunching-onion seeds.

That's interesting. My seeds have been under lights in the garage, where the temp. has probably been in the 40's. the tomatoes germinated well, as did the lettuce and a few other greens. The peppers were very disappointing/slow; several didn't germinate at all, but that might have been due to older seed. And the bunching onions also took their own sweet time. I will be starting another flat of peppers so that I have enough.

 

[odd_duck99]

Our house is set to 66, and the lettuce/broccoli seeds were up and running in 4 days! Today was gorgeous, so I did some rearranging and pulled the tray of tomato seeds out into the beams of sun to warm up... must have worked, as we have one tomato sprout that popped up and grew a whole inch in a matter of hours! I'm hoping tomorrow might be sunny too so I may get more! Still no peppers or forget-me-nots (tossed those in just for fun

Might try that heating pad trick...

 

[Team Chaos]

Instead of expensive heat mats or a heating pad that can turn off after a certain number of hours, I use christmas lights. The rope light kind are the easiest to work with, but you can use standard lights too. You can either zip tie them in a zig zag under the shelf you've got seedlings on, or you can make a nifty "hot box" for germination w/ a tupperware tote. Make sure you pick a tote that will accommodate your preferred size of seed tray! I drill a hole in the tote, tape the rope light in a zig zag on the bottom w/ packing tape, then cover it w/ kitty litter so the heat is dispersed evenly. I apologize if I've already talked about this here, this time of year it seems like the heat mat discussion is every where. I just got 144 soil blocks planted, now I'm eagerly waiting to see some sprouts! I hope to get the next generation of blocks ready in the next few days. Isn't it fun??

OddDuck- last night my husband was looking through the seed bin and he called out to me- I thought he said "where'd you get these stupid tomatoes?" and I got a little defensive- nope, turns out we got some Stupice in a mixed seed collection. Ha ha, oops. I was able to redeem myself w/ info from this thread about the specific variety.

 

[User4960]

I've heard a person whose grandparents were from Yugoslavia say Stupice was pronounced "Stoo PEACH kuh", but I read somewhere it was pronounced "Stoo PEESH". I have grown them, and they are very satisfying to grow. The size of a big Ping pong ball, a touch bigger. There seems to be a few variations depending on where you get the seeds. Some make dark green shoulders, some with yellow shoulders, some pure red. All are great very flavorful yummylicious.

That Christmas tree light idea sounds pretty cool. It is a replacement for heat cables. The new heat pads these days only use 17 watts and are cheap. I think I may well try that Christmas tree light idea next year after i have a cold frame set up.

 

[Denim Deb]

I'll have to get some Christmas lights to try it. But, it's kind of the wrong time of year to buy them. :/

 

[so lucky]

I was clearing out my east flower bed yesterday, and found a bunch of volunteer tomato plants there, from a cherry tomato I had planted there about 5 years ago. It has self-seeded every year since. I couldn't believe all the 4" seedlings, growing in clusters from a dropped tomato here and there. I just thought it was really unusual to find them on April 2, that big already. So I guess the temperature is not as tricky as one may think.

 

[User4960]

What variety of Cherry Tomato are they so lucky?

 

[moolie]

Hubs' boss actually plants his tomato seeds in plastic milk jugs outdoors in his garden in February and just leaves them to do their own thing, transplanting them when it's warm enough outside.

If it snows, that protects them from the cold. But otherwise he says that toughing them out like that makes for super strong plants.

He says he got the idea off the internet, but I've never bothered to search it out. I should pick his brains and try it next year, hubs told me about it too late to try for this year.