Starting tomato seedlings indoors require following a specific process because the tomato seedlings need to be strong enough to survive being moved into an outdoor garden. You must provide the tomato seedlings with the correct amount of time, light, and water to grow thick stem and several sets of true leaves. Most tomato variety seeds requires six to eight weeks of growth indoors before they are ready to be planted outside.
If the tomato seedlings are started too early, they will be fragile when moved outside. Too late, and the tomato seedlings will become root-bound. The first stage of growing tomato seedlings are germination.
How to Start and Care for Tomato Seedlings
Germination takes place in five to ten days under warm and moist soil conditions. During this phase, the tomato seedling draw on the energy stored within the seed to push upwards through the soil. Once the first leaves, called cotyledons, open up, the seedling starts to make the food it requires to perform photosynthesis.
It also requires more moisture at this point, and the soil should remain moist, but dont allow the seedling to sit in soggy soil. The next phase of growing tomato seedlings is when the true leaves start to develop on the plant. The true leaves display a serrated shape that indicates the seedling is growing rapid to create the structure that will eventually grow tomatoes.
During this phase, you must monitor the tomato plants to ensure they have developed a good height and number of leaves. If the tomato plants have developed tall stems but thin leaves, it is a sign that the tomato seedlings did not recieve enough light during this period. Tomato seedlings require the most important factor in there growth: light.
These seedlings require approximately fourteen to sixteen hours of bright light every single day. This is because tomato plants evolved to grow in bright light outside in the summertime. If there is not enough light supplied to the seedlings, they will develop thin stems and small leaves.
Use a small fan to create some movement in the air around the seedlings as the movement of the air will thicken their stems. Proper watering and fertilizing is essential for the growth of tomato seedlings. The soil should remain moist so that the seedlings has the moisture they need to develop.
However, do not allow the seedlings to remain in soggy soil. Wait until the top centimeter of the soil starts to dry out before watering the tomato seedlings again. When the true leaves have developed, start providing a diluted, balanced fertilizer every week.
This fertilizer provides nitrogen to tomato seedlings that will promote the growth of their leaves. Use the proper amount of fertilizer as using too much will kill the roots of the tomato plants, but using too little will lead to slow growth of the plants. Before you move the tomato seedlings into your garden, you need to expose them to a process called hardening off.
This process allow the tomato seedlings to get used to outdoor conditions like sunlight, wind, and temperature changes. Harden off the tomato plants over a period of seven to ten days. Start by placing the tomato seedlings outside for one hour and then continue to increase the amount of time that they are outside over the following days until they are ready to be transplanted into the ground.
At this point, the tomato seedlings should be fifteen to twenty centimeters in height and have developed four to six sets of true leaves. The different varieties of tomatoes will exhibit different growing speeds. For instance, cherry tomato varieties will take less time to progress through the seedling phase then beefsteak or Roma and plum tomato varieties.
Regardless of the tomato variety to be grown, it is essential to monitor the tomato seedlings to ensure there are no growing problems. For example, yellow leaves indicates too much watering or a lack of nitrogen fertilizing. Thin stems indicate that the tomato seedlings were not exposed to enough light.
Lastly, if the seedling begins to collapse, it may be infected with a fungus that too much watering caused. By monitoring the tomato seedlings, you can fix problems while they are still small.