Get a jump start t o your tomato growing season with these easy steps
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Starting your seeds indoors
Gives you the benefit of extending your growing season
To many more months
So there are some plants that are better when started indoors
And then there are some plants as you can see
That do best when they are directly sowed in the soil
So we're gonna be starting our tomato seeds indoors
For this, you need a few things...
You need the tomato seeds
We're using a couple of different varieties of tomato seeds here
The Big Boy Hybrid from Burpee
And the Rutgers tomato from Ferry Morse
Both of these are excellent tomato varieties to grow
And we will be starting them indoors
So that we get a head start into the growing season
So you need the seeds
You need markers
You also need some tags, which you can use to label the plants
We're using a Jiffy Greenhouse here
If you want to buy this product you can look at the video description
For the product link
And make sure that you're buying the Tomato Greenhouse
Now the difference between a regular Jiffy greenhouse and a tomato greenhouse
Is that the seed pellets are a little larger for the Tomato Greenhouse
Now remember that tomato plants do grow very large
And they grow very quickly in these peat pellets
So make sure you're getting the tomato greenhouse
Or you can use other ways to start your tomatoes
You could use your own potting mix and create some sterile soil
Put them in pots, you can use whichever method works best for you
But I just find these peat pots to be very easy to use
And a very fool-proof and guaranteed method to work
For germinating seeds indoors
So we're gonna be taking 6 of these peat pots
And we're going to be growing 3 plants of each variety
So I'm going to take this in a baking tray
I didn't have anything smaller
But if you have something smaller
That might be a better idea
And then I'm gonna just pour some water into this baking tray
And what you want to do is
You want to let these peat pots absorb all the water
That you put around them
And the whole idea is that once they absorb all the water
They're gonna become larger in size
And then you're ready to plant your seeds inside them
So just add some water
Let them soak up all the water
The peat will soak up all the water and become vey large in volume
As you will soon see
You need to give it some time
And as you can see here the peat pots have started expanding taking in all the water
And just keep adding more water as needed
And in some time you will see that
They have now expanded to their full volume
And once that is done
You are now ready to plant your seeds inside these peat pots
So these are the plant markers I am going to use
I got them really cheap at amazon
It was actually cheaper than any other plant label that I could find
And remember that this technique is not only good for starting seeds indoors
Its also good to start seeds when you dont have space to grow your plants
So for example you could have tomatoes growing in your containers
And then you want to start another set of tomatoes let's say for the next few weeks
later
And then you can use these transplants and plant them directly where you want them
So now what we're gonna do is sow the seeds
The tomato seeds are very small
Tomato seeds have quite good germination rate
But we will still put 2 seeds in every peat pot
And the reason you need to put 2 seeds in every peat pot
Is that one of these seeds will vigorously sprout and grow
And it will overtake the other one
And that's the one you want to keep
Because that will be the plant with the most vigor
So once you plant the seeds
Make sure you label them immediately
It may not have t be in the right spot
But you do not want to miss this step of labeling your seeds
And we'll do the same thing with the other tomato variety
And then label these seeds as well
So that's it
Now you need to make sure these seeds germinate
I used my green house in order to germinate the seeds
But you could also grow them very easily under grow lights inside your home
Just make sure they are set in a sunny location so that
When the seedlings emerge they have some light
So so you can see the seeds have sprouted
And the seedlings have become quite tall
And its now time to thin the seedlings
So thinning the seedlings usually means that
You just take scissors and just snip off the tip of the plant that's not healthy
Compared to the other seedling inside the same pot
So if you have doubts on which seedling is better than the other
Just look at the overall growth, the number of leaves
And then make a choice
And keep one and cut off the others
So in this case its a tough choice
Both of these seedlings are pretty well matched
But we still have to select one candidate to get rid of
So Let's just choose this candidate right there
And what we're gonna do is slowly snip the stem off
So that this plant is removed
Just like that
And now you can leave these plants to grow for a few more weeks
Till they are ready to be transplanted
Now in my case I did not have any space left to plant these tomato plants
And I had a lot of tomato plants growing inside my greenhouse
And these long tomato plants are actually better
Because you can bury the tomato stems underground
And that's gonna send out a lot of leaves
You can see how healthy these plants are
And they have taken off pretty well
And since I don't have any space
What I did was
I have transplanted the seedlings Into little bigger sized containers
So what that enables me to do is buy some more time
Maybe about a month or two before I transplant these plants in the ground
Or in bigger containers
Sp the procedure is pretty simple
I'm just removing the peat pot cover
And I'm planting them really deep
As deep as I can into these containers
You dont have to plant them too deep
Just make sure that you bury a lot of the stem underground
And that's gonna send out the roots
Now how do you determine the day you need to start your seeds indoors?
Well, its a very simple thing
Go to this web site that you see on your screen
And then look up the last frost date in the city that's closest to where you live
So for example in my area, the last frost date is 24th Feb
So that enables me to start 6-8 weeks before 24th Feb
Which means approximately in the begging of Jan thru about 15th of January
That way I'll be able to set out my transplants in time and ready to grow for the next season
So I hope you liked this video
I'll see you again soon
Happy Gardening!
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