66F as I sit here and type this. The weather has finally cooperated on a day when I can get outside sooo…. I finally got around to cleaning out the two Heritage raspberry beds. I’ll be picking thorns out of myself for days I’m sure. 😉 One bed was cut back to the ground for a fall crop and the other was cut back to about 12-18″ for a late spring, early summer crop. Every time I look at those beds I want to kick myself for planting them in the garden . What on earth was I thinking??!! Oh well , I already have Sassafras trees coming up among the tomatoes, now I’ll have raspberries too.
Definition of a weed… a plant out of place.
Last night I checked the tomato seeds and many had sprouted. They were removed from the papertowel and placed several to a cup in the heated ‘bench’. These will be placed in individual cups when I get the board cut out for the bench.
Glad to see you back blogging!
Jenn,
Thanks. I am getting very excited about the new season. It will be a challenge with everything I have going on but it will be a chance to learn about some new things, time management, learning how to NOT plant EVERY seed that germinates and with that how NOT to try to germinate EVERY seed in the packet. 😉
Hi!
It was so nice to run into your webpage when i looked up Florida Petite, last week i ordered Florida Petite seeds from Tomato Growers and i planted a couple in shallow paper cups. I too was tempted by the fact that they are supposed to sprout in 7 days and have fruits in 40… my question is.. do i HAVE to use a bed to warm the seeds?
In the packet it said it is a good idea to put a fluorescent light on top until it sprouts before transfering it to the window-sill. I like in nyc.. so no garden. I got the florida petite because they said i could grow it in a 4″ pot… pefect for my window…
Any comments and advice is greatly appreciated… thanks!
Carmen,
Glad you found me.
This is the first year I’ve grown the Florida Petite. I have grown Red Robin before and they did fine. Pretty much any tomato will do better with at least 6 hours of sunlight per day. I confess I grew mine outside so I can’t comment on how they do on the window sill. I would think as long as they have what they need (light, water and nutrients) they should do fine. If you are going to go the 4 inch pot route you may need to water them twice a day in the heat of the summer if you are putting them in a south facing window.
As to the heat, I guess that depends on how warm your window sill is. Tomatoes do like the soil a little warmer to germinate (65-75ish) but they don’t HAVE to have added heat as long as temps are at least 50F. They just may take longer than listed if temps are below the 60s. With regard to lights, I keep mine situated so that the upper leaves are about 2 to 4 inches from the lights. If you aren’t using plant lights you can get by with either daylight tubes or one cool and one warm white tube. I like the daylight tubes best. I’ve really not noticed a big difference between using those and the grow lights and the daylight tubes are much cheaper. I might think differently if I was doing more than just giving my plants a head start under the lights. The plants I start under lights are always a nice deep green and don’t have any trouble adjusting to the sun as long as I take it gradually for the first week or so. What I mean is if you are going from growing under lights to a direct sun situation, ease the plants into it by givint them increasing amounts of sun or filtered sun every day for a week or two. I usually start out with about 2 hours of morning sun and withing a week or two am up to the full amt they will get.
Good luck with your new project. Let me know how it goes.
Hi Kerry!
I am very happy to say that my seeds that were plants on tuesday 4/24, have sprouted. This is my first attempt at growing anything so i tried to start seeds in two different locations, 3 seeds at home and 3 seeds at work. The ones at home never sprouted, even though i watered them and put them under lights, the one at work i came home on monday, to find that eventhough they had no light and no water during the weekend, they were about .75″ tall.
On monday night i got mad at my home seeds and started moving the soil around hoping to find the seeds and to see if there were alive or not, and i let that go.
Lastnight i did a whole in the same container where the tomato seed were and i plopped in a lime seed. I know the lime will take forever to grow and it can do its own thing while i focus on my tomatoes at work.
I woke up this morning only to find out that one of the tomato seeds had sprouted. HA!
for the moment the seeds at work are doing great.
they are now .90 of an inch but all i want now is to see the seeds.
i have a couple of questions.
1.what are and where can i get daylight tubes?
2.how much growth did you see in your seedlings..? when do they start looking like a real plant etc…
3.how long after sprouting did you get your first tomatoes?
Thanks!
Carmen
1. I get daylight tubes at the hardware store but I have seen them at Walmart too. Look for some place that sells flourescent (sp?) tubes and they should have them there.
2. the amt of growth depends on several factors including the variety of tomatoes, the temperature, the fertility of soil and the day length. My Florida Petite and Florida basket tomatoes are shorter and bushier than my big beef or celebrity as would be expected.
3. that also depends on a lot of things the first being the variety of tomato. The seed packet should give you an idea. The florida petite are around 40-50 days while my big beef are closer to 70 days if memory serves me. Obviously, the temperature, availabilty of water and soil fertility also play major roles.
Dear Kerry,
i am happy to report that my seedling is doing just fine….
I ignored comments at work that i should leave it in its small cup, and transplanted it lastnight into its 4 1/2″ pot and it was looking like it was lost in the space. it ws only 1″ tall and the first “real leaves” – non cotyledons were very small.. about an 1/8″ in lenght.
This morning it was sooo great to see that its living up to its potential and the leaves grew so much overnight! they are over 1/4″ in lenght, and the stem is looking wider and stronger.
I am confident that it will continue to grow. When i saw that transplanting it worked, i gave away my extra seedling.
Only these past few days i have been leaving the light on 24/7… and i have noticed a definite improvement over the days that i would only give it 8 hours of light.. (from when it sprouted till about 1 week and a half later) i thought 8 hours was sufficient but when i leave the light on overnight i see that it makes a BIG difference.
How much light do you give your seedlings?
Are you growing something at the moment?
all the best,
C
I generally don’t give my seedlings any more than the max amt of light we will get during our longest days, about 15 hours where I live. For the most part I do 12-14hours on. I believe that plants do need some dark time to do their best just like we need down time to thrive.
This past week I have planted tomatoes (big beef, celebrity, jet setter, mr stripey and an unk grape), peppers (jalapeno and cayenne), eggplant (ichiban and black beauty), cukes (spacemaster) and zucchini (black beauty) into the garden. The spring bearing bed of raspberries are just starting to form buds and my blackberries are in bloom. I noticed some blossoms on my Florida Petite tomatoes that I have in an 8″ container. My Florida Basket may be trying to develop some blossoms too, not sure yet.
Good luck with your seedling.
Hi Kerry!
I just came back from the long weekend to find that my florida petite is about 4″H… you have blossoms on yours? when did you plant it? 🙂
Wow!!! so many new plants!! good luck!
Carmen, congrats on the blossoms.
I planted all of my tomatoes about a month too early this year. I wasn’t paying attention and planted them the first part of March rather than the first part of April which is a better time here. What this meant was that when I went to plant the larger varieties into the ground they were very large. I ended up having to dig rather deep holes for them. On the bright side they will root on the buried stem and it will help during drought. On the down side, a few were beginning to flower when I planted them and that will probably end up in a slightly reduced yield for those plants. I do have way more than I need so we should be ok in tomatoes though.
My F.Petite has some small tomatoes, about the size of my thumbnail. If I can remember to charge my camera battery I will post a pic.
Hey
Wow you already have baby tomatoes on your florida petite! how long did it take for the blossoms to turn into fruit? mine have had blossoms for a week and actually 3 fell off… they seemed to be cut off with a straight line.. but i left it in the office over the weekened so i dont know what happened. I have 3 blossoms left 🙁 and still no tomotoes.
do blossoms ever fall from yours!?!? it seemed so weird… the line was so straight and they were green and healthy… not like they got sick etc 🙁
Carmen, There are a number of things that can cause your tomatoes to drop their blossoms including temps too high or low, fertilizer issues, humidity issues and lack of pollination. You mentioned that the plant is in the office. Tomatoes are pollinated either by wind moving the plant and causing the pollen to transfer or via insects that move the pollen where it needs to be in the flowers. If you are keeping your tomato plant inside you might take a small paintbrush and very gently rub it on each open flower. You can also try gently shaking the plant once or twice a day. Nothing major just a light jostling should do.
Hi Kerry, I’m from Bangalore, South India. I planted some tomato seeds about 10 days back and this morning I saw a very small stem with 2 small leaves. I’m hoping this is my tomato plant and not weeds. Right now we’re in the middle of the monsoons here in India. Do you think my plant will survive the raining season or should I bring it indoors?
This is my first experience with gardening so I put all the seeds in together in one spot. About 8 seeds have germinated. Do I need to separate them with some distance inbetween?
Mercy
As long as the tomato seedlings don’t stay constantly wet they should be ok. If the leaves are wet for extended periods there is more of a risk of disease and rot.
I usually separate my seedlings when they get their first set of true leaves. The very first leaves are long and thin, they are called cotyledons. The next set of leaves will look more like tomato leaves. You can separate them any time really but the longer you wait the more roots there are to untangle.
Also, don’t be afraid to plant the seedlings deeper than they grew. If the tomato plants I am transplanting have multiple sets of leaves, I usually pinch off the lowest leaves and bury the plant to just below the next set of leaves. The newly buried stem will sprout roots.