I really, really don’t like seed starter or potting mixes primarily based on Sphagnum, mostly because of how that material responds to water. My favorite seed starter potting soil is Baccto Premium based on Dark Sedge Reed peat, totally different that sphagnum peat moss in almost every way, texturally, Ph, and especially how it handles water.

I do the top layer with the Jiffy seed starting mix and then underneath with the Baccto. I believe Baccto is based in Texas, but the potting soil is hard to find and not generally available at the big box stores. The baccto has other materials in it and it does supply some nutrients.

I don’t feed on a schedule, but rather try to gauge feeding on the look of the plants and feed accordingly. Most of the time at this stage it will be fish emulsion that I give them. If for some reason the plants need to be inside the house and need to be fed, then I might do something like diluted MG just to prevent any fishy odors.

Water, I invariably top water and water based on weight. If the trays feel light and look dry, they need to be watered. I water outside weather permitting and generally I almost always get to water them outside as there will be an adequate day every few days to take them out to water. I might even let the rain water them if it isn’t too heavy or cold, i did this rain watering or watering by gentle rain at least twice with these seedlings.

I don’t use heating mats. Tomato seeds, in my experience, germinate well if I can get soil warm by having them out in the sun on a low 70s kind of day, we get those here as a rule in January on the coast. I’ll even put the potting soil and moist starter mix in the sun to warm it up prior to planting the seeds. I try to pick a weather window that lets me have couple of mild days to warm up the soil in the trays. That’s why I picked January 6th this year, the weather was right for having the seeds be in a warm enough environment to sprout. Just a few hours in the sun, the soil was 77°. A couple of days with the air and soil in the mid 70s is just fine for tomatoes to get them to sprout on day 5 or so.

Breeze, so long as it isn’t too strong or too cold, is great for young tomato plants with their true leaves. I helps whisk away excess moisture that might lead to dampening off andit helps strengthen the stems. I think the sunlight is great too, if it isn’t particularly warm or high angled, but the sun angles are pretty low even here at 29° north in January. If I think the sun might be too much, I’ll find a tree with enough leaves or branches or something to filter the light a little.

Any acceptable day I want my plants outside in the moving air, basically from the time the first true leaves are visible until time to transplant.

Since I've got nothing better to do I decided to try another experiment.

Step 1: I baked the potting soil in the oven for 2 hours at 200 degrees. That is supposed to sterilize the soil.
Step 2. I planted the seeds an hour ago in sterilized cups and flat. They are basking on my patio in the sunny 65 degree ambient temperature.
Step 3: Later I'll wrap the seed flat in saran wrap and try to make the seal airtight then I'll move them under my grow lights til they sprout
Step 4: A few days after that I'll remove saran wrap and try to move then outside to get some sun then back in at night.
Step 5: At night, I'll cover the seedling flat with a plastic tote to minimize contact with the air in my house.

I tried something similar to this a few years ago but it didn't work. Maybe the ambient air in my yard here is just full of fungi spores. In that case I'll probably just give away my grow lamp, heating mats, and jiffy pellets and seeds to some lucky people on this board.

I have moved these into the garage for the time being. A little too cool and windy out today at the moment for any move outside. 58° in the garage and that should retard the growth to a manageable rate. The house is a little warm, more like 68°, and I don’t want tall, overgrown plants to transplant in a month. Short and stocky, please. Got a ways to go for that. Nice I have a space with better temperatures available when it is too cold outside and too warm inside.

I rotate these trays every few hours, not particularly on a schedule, but it takes 15 seconds so why not.

I have to say of all the seed starting mixes I've tried over the years, Jiffy pellets was by far the worst for me. I just couldn't get anything out of it.
Just a wild guess but maybe they have to be really soaked all the time for a seedling to get roots through it. That doesn't work in my cool seed starting environment, and it's got to be deadly if there's a high spore load in the air. So perfect for them.
Of course I use a heat mat to sprout tomatoes before potting them up. I think it's so cool that you guys can give them the real deal - the feeling of sunshine on the dirt! Can't beat that.

I’ve got 18 tomato plants in the deep six pack type cells and 21 plants in the 3.5-4” individual containers. By and large, the six pack plants are a good deal ahead of the individual plants. All the plants started in the six packs. I used a fork to separate the plants that went into the individual containers. I suppose the move to the new containers set the plants back a bit. No big deal and I don’t think it materially changes anything. More of a point of interest.

Not climate controlled Garage seems to maintain around 58° at night for a minimum even though the outside temperatures have been in the high 30s to low 40s overnight.

I have no plans for these tomato, pepper and eggplant to come inside ever again, plan is to shuttle them from garage overnight to outside in the sun during the day until time to transplant. Pruden’s purple and Brandywine Cowlick’s looking like twins at this stage.

Took advantage of a 66° high cloud, hazy sunshiny noonday to finish upsizing my tomato containers. Next stop is into the beds, probably 3-4 weeks from now. Weather has been outstanding this week for getting these outdoors and into the sun, next week looks good also.

39 tomatoes, now 29 peppers and the 10 eggplant. Plenty to plant, some to share or as insurance against late frosts. I’m thinking I’ll put into the garden ultimately 18-24 tomatoes, most if not almost all of the peppers and 6-8 eggplant

I see the dog's enjoying the sun.

My wife decided those Bella Rosa tomatoes are off somehow. If she detects something off, she’s invariably right. She’s a super taster. I’d probably die from eating something rotten or poisonous if it wasn’t for her.

I might give up on any future fall and winter tomatoes at this location. Does not seem worth the effort. Focus on the prime season, that’s what I plan on.

karstopography wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 7:38 pm My wife decided those Bella Rosa tomatoes are off somehow. If she detects something off, she’s invariably right. She’s a super taster. I’d probably die from eating something rotten or poisonous if it wasn’t for her.

I might give up on any future fall and winter tomatoes at this location. Does not seem worth the effort. Focus on the prime season, that’s what I plan on.

I uncovered some research that might cause you to re-think this. I'll try to post what I found in another installment of my grow log in a week or two. I've been out of commission for the past 7-10 days so I'm way behind on everything so bear with me. In the meantime, here's one study for you to check out.

Comparative study between the physiological role of hydrogen peroxide and salicylic acid in alleviating the harmful effect of low temperature on tomato plants
- Treatment resulted in a 75-80% increase in yield and increased Total Soluble Solids (TSS) about 40%.
- treatment applied when nighttime temperature dropped below 50 degrees.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190712153 ... %201/7.pdf

Yesterday was a watering and feeding day for the little plants. First, I wet, heavy mist, them all down with the hose for quite a while, this with the hose connected to the well. I’d use the shower selection on the nozzle, but it is a little harsh at this stage. The mist is more gentle.

Then, it’s about 2/3 strength fish emulsion and lake water from the watering can, then another mist down with the hose. They weren’t yet bone dry, but I didn’t think they’d make it to today without some water. It was about 70° yesterday and with the breeze they were drying out fairly quickly.

I try to water early enough in the day so that they go into the garage at night having dried foliage and standing up. The watering always makes them flop over some, the taller ones.

The tallest are Cowlick’s, Sart Roloise and Principe Borghese. They all grew about an inch to 6” from yesterday to this morning inspite of being in the garage which measured 62° this morning.

I’ve never kept these plants in as cool of conditions as much as I have this year and yet they still are growing pretty fast. The tall Sart Roloise has turned almost completely purple because it’s been so cool. Many others have some little sign of purple.

There should not be any question of these being thoroughly hardened off before transplanting.

An inch of growth from seedlings in cool temperature like that is very impressive @karstopography. Looks like you might be getting ripe tomatoes the first week in April.

The soil is probably still warm enough at night to let them grow over night.

Wildcat82 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2024 11:58 am An inch of growth from seedlings in cool temperature like that is very impressive @karstopography. Looks like you might be getting ripe tomatoes the first week in April.

I don’t believe I have any early season tomatoes in the mix. I think the earliest I have might be 70 days to maturity and that puts the timing towards the end of April if I transplant mid-late February. I think even the smaller fruited ones like Principe Borghese, Pandorino, A Grappoli D’ Inverno are 70 day types. I didn’t do Sungold this season, it might be a 50 something day tomato.

I almost planted Stupice for an early tomato, but decided not to at the last minute.

Seems like in past seasons I get some color breakers on my various mid season types in the later part of April.

As it with these tomatoes, nothing is guaranteed. For unknown reasons, I’m not feeling especially confident this season. I hope that makes me put in whatever measures I can think of to ensure the tomatoes have a good shot at success. I feel like I’m overdue for a bad year, like it is a matter of time and my time is up. I hope the feeling is wrong. I don’t want any self-fulfilling prophecy going on.

Got them all in the garage today. Raining out and they don’t need any additional water at the moment. I need these to slow down some as the latter half of February isn’t looking too tomato friendly on the forecast. It’s pretty cool out in the garage.

Eight of these tomatoes are slated to be transplanted into this 4X10 bed, probably on or around 2/15/2024. There’s nothing frightening on the long term forecast. We have a 36° low predicted next Tuesday morning, but mostly around 50° for lows after that.

I’m at fourteen tomato plants as what I want to grow. That should still be far more tomatoes than I can use and require less time and effort to care for than my usual 25 -30 plants or so.

Sart Roloise will likely be one of them, both of my Sart Roloise are pictured, one has a lot of purple in the leaves, the other doesn’t. I’m chalking it up to inconsistency of the soil/worm castings mix I made and used.

I’m likely just going to pick the strongest looking 14 plants and go with those. Brandywine Cowlick’s, Pruden’s Purple, Aker’s West Virginia, Principe Borghese, A’Grappoli D’ Inverno, Hoy, Japanese Black Trifele, Dester are the strongest at the moment. There’s several others that are pretty close.

Soil is 69°

Planted 4 Sungolds, 2 Husky Cherry Reds, and one Supersweet 100 in containers today. Along with my 2 over wintered plants I now have 9 early season plants growing outside.

Just after I planted, I see they downgraded the Monday low temperature to 37 degrees. I hope I don't have to bring them in.

One day forward from yesterday’s post. These tomatoes are really growing. Minimum temperature overnight was 63°. They spent the night outdoors. 74° now.

I moved the Aswad eggplant and put a tomato into its spot. Otherwise, the photo is of the same flat of plants taken at the same angle.

I was out and about today and saw tomato plants at Home Depot. I won't be putting anything out until March the 1st, weather permitting. I didn't start from seeds this year because I had major surgery in December and didn't want to be concerned about caring for the seedlings. So I will be buying tomato starts.

@SpookyShoe I hope that you are recovering nicely. Stay well.