Hey guys it's Brijette with San Diego Seed Company. We own and operate a one
acre certified organic urban farm in San Diego, California. Kellogg Garden Organics has asked me
to do a video on, everything you need to know about starting your tomato seeds, all the way
to harvesting your tomatoes! All right, first off, you've got your wonderful tomato seeds like these,
san marzano's that we love so much. Now, how are you going to start the seeds? Well, first off,
if you have on hand really good seed starting mix, it will make all the difference and you will
be much more successful. If you have good seed starting mix, you can fill it up with your pot
and you can plant your seed. If you only have garden soil, what you can do is fill your pot with
garden soil, and then this is a nice little trick that I like to use, you can sift your garden soil,
so only fine little particles land on top of your seeds and don't obstruct it from germinating! So,
let's actually see what this looks like. So, we'll take some of these seeds here and i'll show you
,there's a lot in one pack, so you really want to try to be careful.
On a pot this big, you can actually put more than one seed, just in case another seed maybe
doesn't germinate or a bug comes along and eats it. What I like to do is, I like to put a seed
in each corner, that way I have four chances to have a sprout. And let's say all four sprout and
grow in this pot, I actually can break them apart, and then I have four tomatoes that I
can share or plant in my garden. So, I've got my four seeds in each corner. Personally, I believe
the best method for seed starting is not to punch a hole in the soil and drop the seed in the soil,
because that often results in people planting the seed too deep. What I have people do is actually,
just put the seed on top and then cover the seed. I'm going to use a sifter,
this is my little pro tip, and put my soil inside and again. You can use a seed starting mix, or, if
you don't have it any good soil that you can sift, you can use, and I'm going to cover the seeds
with the sifted soil. Now, this is a pretty finely meshed strainer, you can use anything. I
end up using a lot of the things from my kitchen in my garden, and what you're going to see is,
they're lightly covered with a very fine bit of soil. That's going to guarantee for really nice
germination. It's important that you look at your seeds and you make sure they are in fact covered.
If they're not covered when they germinate, they won't grow very well and you'll be disappointed,
but I can tell that they're covered really nicely.
Now, I planted into a pot of soil that was a little bit moist, but not moist enough. A common
mistake that people do is they have their seeds planted, they're all excited, they get the hose,
and then they go to water, and what do they do? They spray the seeds into each corner,
or even off the pot because, they water it too too hard. A way that you can get around that is,
you can actually just water into a tray and let the water be sucked up into the pot.
I like that. It's called bottom watering and it's actually the method that we use in our greenhouse,
and it just guarantees that the water gets all the way through this pot, and that it's evenly
moist throughout the whole area. Additionally, it's going to help my pot not dry out as quickly,
because it's going to sit in a tray of moisture. Now, remember, you never want your pot to be
sitting in water for too long, because then it will become, it will start to, start to basically
rot. You just want it to sit in the water long enough to guarantee that there's moisture
all the way through here. Another reason why I really like doing seeds in each corner is because
then when I want to stick my finger in to make sure that there's enough moisture, I can do it
in the middle, and I know that I'm not disturbing any seeds. Okay so, you've followed all my tips
and your seeds have germinated beautifully! Let's see what that looks like. We have here, in a tray,
some seeds that were germinated, not that long ago. For example, you can see these guys, they're,
they're still very small. And two of the seeds are growing very close together. In a situation like
this you really want to get rid of one of these. Why? Because, they're far too close together and
they're only going to compete with one another. I recommend that you pull one out. I know it's
so hard but, this one's going to grow so much faster because it's the only plant in this little
cell or pot. Now, when they get to this size, you actually, if you want, you can pull them apart,
and you can transplant both of these into a bigger pot until they get bigger to go out into
the garden. No sense in wasting them, they've got beautiful roots, they're happy, they're healthy,
but it's important that you don't let them grow together when they're this size or they'll just be
really stunted. Now, for us, as soon as they get this big and have their first set of true leaves,
which is actually the second set here, we fertilize. Why? Because, these babies are so
little they need constant nutrients to grow quickly and to get to the size where we can
transplant them. We like using fish emulsion. We like that, we can we can dilute it in water,
it goes easily in the trays, it won't burn our plants, it's just a great product for us to use.
We don't use granular fertilizer at this stage because, we want something that is water soluble
and the plant can utilize right away, that's very important. So, once it goes from this stage, then
it'll go to this stage here, a little bit bigger. At this stage, we actually pull it out of the
cell because look at those roots, that much roots was in this tiny little cell! This is when we do
what's called potting up and we pot into a larger size, like this, this is the exact same tomato.
This guy was in a tiny little, little square cell and then we put it into a little four inch pot.
For the backyard gardener, this is a great size pot to even just start your seeds in
because, you don't have to pot up, it's large the plant can grow big and happy,
and then once it gets big enough, you can transplant outside. Now, before we go outside,
I want to point out something really important. Let's think about the financial side of this. So,
in one seed pack, that's three dollars and fifty cents, I can get hundreds of tomato plants.
Whereas, if you go to the store you're gonna buy one, this size, for three to four dollars. And so,
if you're trying to garden on a budget, the way to do it is to learn how to start your seeds,
so that you can get as much plants as possible for the least amount of money. Okay guys, so now
let's talk about transplanting your tomatoes! You've spent several weeks getting your little
tiny transplants to a big healthy size, let's not mess it up here. Let's make sure that we're really
careful and that we can transplant these tomatoes correctly, so that you get a really big bountiful
harvest. What are the things you need to remember? Well, first of all, never plant into dry soil. As
a general rule of thumb, the area that you want to plant, whether it be in ground or in a pot,
you want to make sure that there is adequate moisture in the soil before even planting.
So, what I like to do is dig my hole where I'm going to plant and actually squeeze the soil in
my hand, and I'm going to know, whether or not it clumps. How much moisture is in the soil?
I can tell because, this is clumping, that there's actually some moisture in the soil.
We've recently got a little bit of rain, so I can tell it's made its way through the soil, and it's
got some moisture there. Now, if this was completely dry, I would make sure
that I would irrigate, maybe even the night before, so that this area is nice and moist.
On top of having moisture in the ground, I'm also going to water before I transplant. Why? Because,
when I pull this tomato out of the pot, I'm naturally going to disrupt some of these roots.
And so, if I put this plant into a, a spot in the garden that's really dry,
it's going to suck the moisture from the plant and it's going to wilt to a point where it's
not going to be good for the plant. So, I'm going to want to make sure that I water before.
Now, other considerations to think about when you're transplanting tomatoes, and any crop is,
I don't recommend that you transplant them in the hottest part of the day.
In fact, on our farm we like to transplant in the evening.
Why? Because, then the plants have the whole evening to acclimate to their new environment
and not be sitting in the hot noonday sun the first day that we transplant them.
So, I've already watered and I'm going to plant this guy in, but I want to point out something
really interesting, and super cool about tomatoes. See these tiny little white hairs?
The tiny little white hairs are actually going to become roots! So, if I plant the tomato way up
here, all of these little white hairs are going to become roots, and the plant will actually be much
stronger. So, I'm going to plant him much deeper than I would, say, a bean plant or a pepper plant.
Now, you can see that our soil is really nice, and that's from years of adding compost, and mulch,
and worms. So, this tomato plant's going to be very happy. Now, on top of irrigating the night
before, digging my hole, and adding moisture, I'm also going to do what's called 'watering
in'. I'm going to water around the tomato plant to guarantee that it gets moisture on its first
day in the ground. It's so important. Okay so, now we've seen how to transplant your tomatoes, let's
not forget something really important, spacing. Now, if you're doing it in a pot, you know that
the bigger the pot, the better. But, if you're planting in a garden bed or in ground, like this,
how close together can you put them? Well, as a general rule of thumb, you really don't want
them any closer than about a foot because tomatoes can get huge, especially if they're indeterminate.
They will get viney and they will grow into each other, and it will be a really big mess. So, if
no less than a foot. If you can give them a little more space, they'll be even happier. Now, all this
talk of spacing brings me to a really important point that everyone should know about tomatoes.
There are two types of tomatoes, really three, but we'll touch on two. There's indeterminate, which
is sometimes called vining tomatoes, and that's a lot of the really good heirloom tomatoes that
are out there. They grow and they're very viney and they need a lot of structure to hold them
up off the ground. And then there's determinate tomatoes, determinate tomatoes are bushy tomatoes,
they don't need as much trellising, and they tend to give all of their crop at once. Popular
determinate tomatoes are things like paste tomatoes or sauce tomatoes where it gives you
a lot of tomatoes at once, and you better get out there, and pick them, and make some tomato sauce.
Now, with determinate tomatoes, because the plants tend to be a little bit more well-behaved,
you could put them a little bit closer together. Whereas, with indeterminate tomatoes you really
need to follow the no less than one foot rule if you're going to have happy tomatoes.
Let's talk about companion planting. Tomatoes love to be grown around lots of flowers! It brings in
the pollinators and just makes tomatoes really happy. So, you can grow things like alyssum,
nasturtium, calendula. Lots of flowers like to be grown at the base of tomatoes where they're
a little bit shaded from the sun. A bad companion planting would be something that grows much taller
than the tomato and shades them. Tomatoes love full sun, and they're going to want sun all day,
and not be shaded by any other plant. So, another big question I get from people is,
what is the ideal growing conditions for a tomato? Well, tomatoes like full sun, they don't like to
be shaded by any other crops, they need steady and constant water supply. If you're in a dry climate,
you might need to water every day or every other day during really hot periods of the summer. Now,
tomatoes, like any other plant, need to be fed. If there's not a lot of nutrients in the soil,
if you have a new garden box, or soil that's not really great, you might have to add some
fertilizers. Any good, all-purpose, fertilizer will work for your plants. I recommend an organic
vegetable fertilizer that has even nitrogen potassium and phosphorus that will feed
your plants. We like to use a liquid fertilizer because it will be readily available to the plant,
but you also can use a granular fertilizer that you put in the row and you water in. Either way,
it's really important that your tomato plants, like any plant, gets the proper nutrients it
needs to grow, and thrive, and be healthy. So, let's talk about pruning. Now, pruning in tomatoes
can be a dicey subject. Some people don't believe in in pruning tomatoes, some people do. On our
farm we always try to stay on top of the suckers, which are these guys, in our tomato production,
because otherwise, our tomatoes get out of control. Now, what is a sucker,
how do you find it, and why do you remove it? Well, a sucker is a part of the plant that grows
in between this leaf, here, and the main stem, and it's going to grow out at an angle.
The sucker is called that because it sucks energy from other parts of
the plant that you want the energy to go to. So, by taking off this sucker here,
I'm going to stop the energy from making this, this part of the plant get really big and instead,
as the energy travels up the plant, instead of it getting sidelined and growing into the sucker,
by removing that, it's going to go into this cluster of flowers, and produce quicker tomatoes
for me. If I let this grow, this sucker will get ginormous, and grow, and grow, and grow,
and grow, and yes, these tomatoes will eventually ripen, but most backyard gardeners don't have the
room to let this get really crazy, they just want their tomatoes to be produced in a timely manner.
By taking this off, we can control the size of the plant. Another good reason for pruning the
suckers is airflow, when a tomato plant like this gets so big and so mangled insects, both good
and bad can start to really take over into the middle of the plant because there's no air flow.
So, by taking off the sucker, I can actually help the plant be much more manageable
and I can allow for even ripening of my tomatoes. Want to know something really cool? These guys
can actually be grown into tomatoes! You can stick this into a cup of water and watch as
roots grow on the bottom part of the plant, and then this can be transplanted out.
It's a really cool way to gift little baby tomato plants to your friends and your neighbors.
All right, so let's talk about some of the things that can go wrong with your tomato plant. Let's
talk about pests and disease. They're unfortunate things but they happen in every garden, and it's
nothing to be ashamed of, but it's important that you recognize what is a pest and what is
a disease. This is downy mildew which is a common foliar disease that happens in tomatoes. It's very
similar to powdery mildew and most gardeners will experience it at some point in their gardening
journey. Now, depending on your area, you can get specific information about how to treat this and,
and what times of years that it commonly occurs, from your local agricultural extension office.
Now, that is a disease which is very different than a pest. Common pest that you will encounter
with tomatoes are the scary tomato hornworm, which is a very large worm that can eat a good
portion of your tomato if you let it! And if you google images, they're kind of scary looking too.
Also, aphids can be an issue, white flies are another pest that can really hurt your tomatoes,
and every region is is different so it's really hard for me to go over every single
pest and disease. But, it's important to know that there's a lot of really good resources out there
that will give you specific information about your specific region, and what's common, I
recommend that you familiarize yourself with those websites, and that information. Now, if you find
powdery mildew or downy mildew in your garden, on your tomatoes, there are a few things that you
can do to help mitigate the issue. Make sure that you have proper air flow, as I mentioned earlier,
with pruning. Airflow is important, not just to prevent issues with pests, but also with diseases.
If you prune your plants properly and allow for air flow, they'll dry quicker after a rain,
or after you water, and it'll allow for things, like mildew, to not grow as quickly. So, let's say
you go out into your garden, and you find a tomato hornworm, and it's chomping away at your garden,
it's eating almost half your tomato. Well, the nice thing about them, is they're so big,
they're pretty easy to spot, and you can actually just pull them off, if you're brave enough, by
hand, and throw them into a bucket of soapy water. There's no need to spray, you can just manage them
simply by pulling them off and tossing them into a bucket. All right, so fast forward about
two months, or eight weeks, and your plant's gonna look something like this.
As you can tell, these tomato plants are huge, and we have a massive amount of structure built
to try to keep them up off the ground. No tomato cage is really going to work for these tomatoes,
so we've built a system with trellises and pvc, and this is a little excessive for most growers,
but the point is is that you want to have a nice strong trellis system to hold your tomatoes up off
the ground, so that your tomatoes don't rot, insects don't eat your tomatoes, or rodents
don't get to your tomatoes, and your tomatoes will just be much more happier and healthier
if you can give them an adequate structure to grow upon. These are our san marzanos,
these are the same tomato seeds that we planted in our greenhouse, and this is what they look like.
We will pick these when we have a lot of them and make sauce out of them. It'll be absolutely
delicious! We love making salsa too, and we even freeze it when we have too much of the tomato. So,
let's say you're not growing a san marzano, you're growing a different type of tomato,
how do you know when it's ready? Well, first check for color,
is it the color that it's supposed to be, has the color formed all the way around the tomato?
Now, we don't always go by color because it can be a little tricky, especially with something like,
say, a green zebra tomato, it's really hard to tell when those are ready by color,
but if we give it a little bit of a squeeze and it gives a little bit, and it's just slightly soft,
we know that is it's at its peak flavor, and it's the best time to pick it.
Let's say you live in an area where you get frost, or a snow is coming, you can always pick your
tomatoes green and set them on the counter and let them ripen that way. The flavor won't be as
good but at least you saved all your tomatoes. All right, so now you've learned in just a very short
period, how to grow your tomatoes from seed, all the way to the point where you harvest them, and
you enjoy the meals that you make out of them. Tomatoes are a great crop and they're usually
a gardener's first crop and you'll fall in love with them because they're so much fun.