Moist soil and roots will help the plants get through the process and make your life a little easier too.Īdd a little bit of soil mixed with compost into the bottom of the new pot. Make sure you have your bigger, clean pots ready to go bio-degradable containers are always a great choice!īegin by thoroughly watering the tomato seedlings in their original pots. These are not considered to be “true” leaves, and getting rid of them will promote thicker stems and better leaf growth. It’s also a good idea to pinch off the first set of leaves on the plant, at the very bottom of the stem. There’s always a risk associated with doing this, but if you gently tug at the plants, they can come apart nicely. If you choose not to sacrifice any plants at all, carefully unravel the roots during the first transplant. This way, you won’t risk damaging the root system of the remaining plant. Choose the seedling that looks to be the healthiest and snip the others at the soil line. While it’s a painful process for most, know that tomatoes will always do better when they don’t have to compete with another plant for nutrients. If many seeds have germinated in a single pot, you’ll need to thin them out. Eventually, you may move up in size to a one-gallon container. The first time you move them, a single tomato plant can be happy in something as small as a 4 inch peat pot. Tomato seedlings are ready for an upgrade once their first set of true leaves form and they are about 6-10 inches tall. So, allowing them to graduate to bigger homes promotes stronger root growth the taproot can have a growth rate of one inch per day! When To Transplant Tomato plants are unique in the way that the tiny hairs on their stems, called trichomes, can be buried deeper into the soil during the transplant process to form new roots. This is especially true when container gardening or if you live in an agricultural zone where it is still too cold to put the plants into the ground. Tomato seedlings may need to be moved to bigger homes a few times throughout their various growth stages. There are a few extra steps associated with starting plants from seed, and transplanting into bigger pots is one of them! Why Transplant? When growing tomatoes from seed, gardeners get to enjoy the experience from beginning to end. There’s nothing better than a tomato fresh off the vine, walked just a few steps from the garden to the kitchen. Time, effort, and a whole lot of TLC is usually rewarded with a bountiful yield. A successful crop of tomato plants is something that brings great joy to many gardeners.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |