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Transplanting Tomatoes

By: Decomposed in GARD | Recommend this post (0)
Sat, 10 Apr 21 6:24 PM | 502 view(s)
Boardmark this board | Gardening 		Msg. 00006 of 00028
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My tomatoes are growing quickly. Today I found that quite a few of the bigger ones are beginning to flop. That's not too surprising - they're 10 inch plants growing in little 2 inch sixpack pots. I shouldn't have started them before April 1st since the weather won't let me put them in the ground until May, but I did because I wanted to see if the seeds were viable and give myself time to grow a new batch if there were problems. But nearly all of my tomato seeds were good.

I'm now transplanting the largest plants into cups I bought on Amazon a few weeks ago.

Tomatoes are extremely hardy plants that handle transplanting well. My biggest concerns with transplanting them are the amount of time and pricey seed starting soil that will be required, and space issues since I only have one grow light and all of my plants need some time beneath it each day. Bigger pots mean substantially less grow light time each day for each plant. Ah well. I don't think there's a whole lot of choice. I'd rather deal with the problems I mentioned than with plants that flop over and either die or become malformed.

I transplant by first watering the six packs. That helps the soil and roots to bind. Then I add a little dirt to the bottom of each of the cups receiving a plant. The best way to get a plant out of its sixpack cup is with a butter knife, using care to get the entire plant extracted with minimal trauma to the roots. Then, into the new pot. Additional soil and a heavy watering completes the process. Unfortunately, I have to do this about 70 times in the days to come.

Next year, NO tomato seed planting until April 1st.




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