It’s time to transplant my Tomato seedlings from their nursery tray into individual pots. The seedlings have at least two of their larger, ‘real’ leaves and they are nice and short, green and vigorous.
I’m planting them well below the soil level that they were at in the tray. I’m trying to get them so deep in the pots that the soil almost reaches the lowest leaves (but not quite). This will encourage the plant to send out roots from the stem to make an even more sturdy and healthy plant.
All I need to do now is to fully harden them off and they will be ready to be planted in their final position in the garden.
I totally love growing Tomatoes. There are few other vegetables as satisfying to grow as Tomatoes. Now all I need to do is make sure they don’t get blight, like last year – hmmm…easier said than done.
Here’s my plan of attack (apart from the usual of removing the lower leaves on the plant)
- Plant my seedlings nowhere near where I planted them last year (blight can linger in the soil).
- Plant disease-resistant varieties (I’m going for Ferline).
- I’ll be taking special care not to water on to the leaves.
- I’ll try to control weeds in and around the plants. Weeds serve as hosts for insects and disease.
- Control insect pests (especially aphids) which may transmit disease from plant to plant.
- As soon as I see any sign of blight, that will be the death knell for that plant (harsh but necessary).
- I’m planting them in the sunniest spot in the garden.
- I might try to rig up some kind of removable rain cover (I might).
- I’ll be asking the rain gods for some nice weather this summer – well you can but ask.
If anyone has any more tips for keeping outdoor Tomatoes blight-free, let’s hear it. I need all the help I can get.
Last week I posted a list of what I had sown up to now this year. I mentioned in that post that I was ‘giving my Tomatoes the four-star treament’. James then e-mailed me and asked, ‘in reference to your Tomatoes, what is the four star treatment’? So I thought I’d let you know.
Well, I don’t have a green house so the only way I can grow Tomatoes from seed is to germinate them in a heated propagator on my windowsill. Once they have germinated I take them off the heat and put them in a normal propagator (I don’t prick them out, just lift the whole tray out).
Then I grow them on on the windowsill. However, my windows don’t get that much sunlight and so I move the plants outdoors every morning and bring them in every evening in order to give them enough sunlight. I’ll do this until they are ready to go into individual pots. Then I’ll start to harden them off in the coldframe.
Did I say four-star, that should have been five-star! In short, it’s a lot of work. But it’s the only way I know to get some seedlings of the super-duper blight resistant variety, Ferline (apparently Legend and Fantasio are quite good too). I haven’t seen any shops selling the seedlings. Please let me know if you have because I’m in the market to buy!
The tomatoes are ripening – at last! They needed a bit of help. Basically I had been a bit lazy. I’d let them run amock in the strawberry patch, which meant that several things happened. 1. we had no strawberries because they didn’t have enough light and were overrun with slugs and 2. the toms had so many leaves that I had no idea how many green fruits there were lurking in the undergrowth. Once I had shifted the leaves out and let the sun in they started to go red – and here they are with the first tiny aubergine, some courgettes (that I am trying to cut when small from now on) and some peppers.
I made a yummy tomato salad with all the ingredients chopped really small with a dressing of olive oil, mustard and balsamic vinegar. Pop it in the freezer for a couple of mins to make it really cold…
