It's Tomato Starting Day!

[Sue_CT]

When do you normally start your seeds?

[AKgardener]

Haha love it!!

[NMRuss]

A month ago. Ready to pot up and start to acclimate them.

[Lotte]

I always start the first day in March sowing 24 sorts and next day 24 sorts and so on until my choosen sorts are done.In about 3 weeks I start putting them in bigger pots and if some haven't germinated, I resow.

[AKgardener]

A9E9104E-6518-4E1B-BDE0-AE3D5D70F5A8.jpeg

Did I over water? These are exstreme bush tomato plants I read curling was normal thry look sad

[JRinPA]

I'm about ready to start...should be tonight. I guess. This will be about 3 weeks early for me compared to the last few years. I've been planting them after 4 weeks or so. I probably should wait yet. I wanted to do some "Early" a couple weeks back but somehow did not. Now it seems too late for a few early, yet too soon for the main crop. But I sort of want to get back to trenching some plants, so they should be a bit bigger than my mid april starts, 4 weeks/6 inches, that I just bury straight down.

A couple weeks back I started peas in the driveway that I had to move to the basement due to the 19F the other night. 11 trays of peas, 5 trays of spring crops. That brought bad memories of starting tomatoes in mid March and having to babysit and shuffle them and repot them in late April and May.

[GoDawgs]

Mine are about ready but I need to wait a couple of weeks to avoid a last minute April frost that always sneaks in to the picture. It never fails... plant tomatoes and then have to cover them!

[Yak54]

Mine are still trying to see me through their seed packets. LOL

Yeah me too. I won't start tomato seeds for another week yet and peppers for another week after that. I do have lettuce seedlings growing under lights in the garage.

[AKgardener]

D86EE20A-B923-4539-897E-3F767F9FF93B.jpeg

27 out of 36 made it

[rxkeith]

i have 24 varieties sown as of now.
12 of those were started a few days ago. seed age is 9 to 13 years.
in another week i will start the cherry tomatoes, and if any of the already
planted seeds don't sprout, i will pick some replacements.


keith

[brownrexx]

Planted 18 pots of tomatoes, 2 Chinese String Eggplant and 5 pots of peppers today.

I thought about Paquebot and enjoyed planting the seeds that were sent to me for the Paquebot Memorial Grow out.

All pots are sitting on a heat mat in my sunroom right now.

[Tormahto]

Looking at the 10-day forecast, there is no starting day on the horizon, for me. I grow seedlings outside during the daytime, and move them inside at night, until nights get fairly warm. If the forecast is correct, almost no sunshine, 30%+ chance of showers most days, and temps in the low to mid 50's. A few starts may still happen about mid-April, but most of my starts are usually around the 1st of May.

[slugworth]

Potting soil/seed starting mix prices are higher than last year.
I started 10 year old seeds yesterday and want to start more seeds next week.

[GoDawgs]

Big decision to make. The tomatoes are just the right size for planting out but need to wait two weeks to make sure the weather will be right. Planting them deep solves the problem if they get leggy. But the lights are now as high as I can raise them and the plants are right up to them. They need to be hardened off for sure so they could go out to the porch but it's to be windy all next week.

Regardless, the task this weekend is to gather up all the tomato pots, get them scrubbed out and then sprayed with a 10% bleach solution. The pallets they sit on need to be inspected and any weak ones replaced. Then next Thursday or Friday there will be the annual trip to get a pickup load of potting mix and pot the tomatoes.

The ten day forecast shows highs between 71 and 81, lows between 45 and 65. It's La Nina, it's warm early and maybe that last freeze we had was the last one. I've got a cold weather protection scheme in my head just in case. We'll see.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

In honor of what would have been my Dear late Tomato Rancher par excellence Father's 97th Birthday, I planted today:

Ananas Noire​ 2
Daniel Burson 2
Giant Garden Paste Hybrid 3
Greenbush Italian Heirloom (WI developed cultivar) 3
Henderson's Winsall Heirloom 2
Horizon Heirloom 2
Jersey Devil 4
Opalka Heirloom 5
Red Sausage 4
Rose Heirloom 2
San Marzano 4
Sauce Hybrid) 3
Sheboygan Heirloom (WI developed cultivar) 3
Stump Of The World 7
Yaqui Hybrid VFFNA( 5

AND in the interests of balance: Diva (3) and Sweet Success (4) cukes, green (4) and yellow (4) zukes, and 9 Butternut Squarsh.

The Gotch

[Tormahto]

83F5E81C-276A-4992-975F-3913497D1F5D.jpegHere is my weird plant granted it’s just starting out but has 3 leaves or what ever they are called I say it’s a keeper

Some of us call them tricots. I forget the rarity (in my garden), perhaps 1 in 100 or more.

Quadcots are the super rare ones, as I've only seen a few of them, out of too many thousands of seedlings to estimate.

[AKgardener]

It is definitely a keeper haha it is the biggest one and got the biggest true leaves first

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

@GoDawgs; "But the lights are now as high as I can raise them and the plants are right up to them."

Had that exact same problem last year when I planted on March 10th and had to rig up another set of lights.

Lost nearly all them anyway and had to replant 40 starts on April 30th; which is why I put off planting until today.

The Gotch

[wildcat62]

Started ours today.

[AKgardener]

Had to restart the exstreme bush all 4 just wilted and did not recover these plants to me seemed very delicate. Never grew them before so will see how these next ones do