Tomatoes are one of the most beloved and sought aftervegetables. In our region, tomatoes can only be grown using seedlings due to the very long growing season of this plant and a fairly short summer for it. Therefore, growing tomato seedlings begins in January-March: late-ripening tomatoes are planted in January-February, and early and mid-ripening varieties are planted in March. And if you want to get a good harvest at your dacha, you need to know how to grow tomato seedlings. Seeds of this crop can be purchased at garden centers, nurseries and specialized stores. Before planting seeds, you need to disinfect the windowsill or the place where you will grow the seedlings. Because if there were indoor plants on the windowsill, then this must be done to avoid transmitting diseases to the seedlings.
Capacities
For growing seedlings in ideal containersare cassettes that are easy to use, store and transport. But if you don't have them, then disposable paper and plastic cups, plastic bottles with the top cut off, and any plastic food containers are suitable as containers for tomato seedlings. All of them need to have drainage holes through which excess water will flow out during watering. Choose containers so that they stand steadily on the pallet without tipping over. Baking sheets, regular plastic trays, photo trays, etc. are suitable as pallets.
Seed preparation
Tomato seeds need to be checked before sowingfor germination, sorting them and removing the smallest ones. Then they need to be prepared for a difficult period of growth for the plant in a small container on the windowsills, temperature changes and various diseases. Such preparation accelerates germination. Preparation includes warming up, disinfection and germination or disinfection, germination and hardening. You can warm up the seeds on heating radiators, under a lamp or in an oven for two to three days. It is imperative to subject the seeds to disinfection. It should be noted that such manipulations should only be carried out with seeds purchased from other gardeners. Garden centers sell already disinfected and warmed up seeds. To prevent the occurrence of diseases transmitted through seeds, they are disinfected by lowering the change in cloth bags into a concentrated solution of potassium permanganate. It should be cherry-colored. A brown solution can burn the seeds. They are kept in the solution for fifteen minutes and then washed with water. Large and small seeds should be planted separately.
Substrate preparation
To grow healthy tomato seedlings,good nutritious soil is needed - porous, loose, permeable to moisture and air. It must be processed to get rid of weeds, pests and pathogens. This is done by heating or steaming. For steaming, a wide metal can with holes punched in it is placed on the bottom of the bucket. The can should be such that the entire bottom is covered. A little water is poured into the bucket, and soil is poured into the can. Then the bucket is covered with a lid and put on the fire, steaming the soil for forty minutes. Steaming can be replaced by pouring the soil mixture in boxes or pots, and this should be a hot solution of potassium permanganate. After such treatment, the soil is strongly compacted, and it should be thoroughly dried and loosened. You can make the soil mixture for tomato seedlings yourself. For this, you can take 75% peat, 20% turf soil and 5% mullein. Another composition: 45% rotted compost or manure humus, 50% turf soil and 5% cow dung. You can also make a mixture of 75% peat, 20% horse manure without straw and 5% cow dung. Cow dung is placed in pots for density. When growing seedlings in cups, boxes or clay pots, cow dung is not used. To reduce the acidity of the substrate, ash, chalk or lime are added to it - about a handful per bucket. Do not forget about mineral fertilizers. When growing seedlings, 15-20 grams of ammonium nitrate, 4-6 grams of potassium chloride and 20-25 grams of superphosphate are added to the nutrient mixture per bucket of soil mixture. In addition, you can grow tomato seedlings in peat tablets, which are sold ready-made in garden centers.
Sowing
For many summer residents, the sore question is when to sowtomato seeds for seedlings. It is impossible to answer it unequivocally, because here everything should be taken into account: variety, climate zone, periods of frost, etc. In principle, this can be done several times per season. But the time of sowing seeds will depend on the time of planting seedlings in the ground - the later you need to plant seedlings, the later you need to sow seeds. If you have a greenhouse or hotbed on your site, then, of course, you can plant seeds earlier, because then the seedlings will grow under protection until planting in the ground. Gradually, you will gain your own experience of when it is better to sow seeds, recording the timing of sowing seeds for several years in a row, the time until the emergence of seedlings, then the appearance of the first leaves and the beginning of flowering. For approximate calculations, you can give the following figures: from the moment the first shoots appeared until the beginning of flowering, early varieties need 50-60 days. Before the emergence of the shoots themselves, 7-10 days will pass, plus about a week for adaptation after picking the seedlings. Therefore, if you plan to plant seedlings in a film greenhouse or hothouse at the beginning of June, then you should sow tomato seeds for seedlings no earlier than mid-to-late March. Summer residents in the northern regions will also have to take into account the length of daylight hours in April-May. There, seedlings grow and develop faster. The optimal temperature regime for growing seedlings should be as follows:
- 14-18 ° C - on a sunny day;
- 12-16 ° C - overcast;
- 10-14 ° C - at night.
The temperature will need to be lowered twice:
- after the shoots appear for 4-7 days so that they do not stretch very much;
- for one and a half to two weeks before landing in the ground in order to season the seedlings.
In the last days before planting seedlingsthe temperature of the contents is generally reduced to the level of the outside temperature. Ready-made seedlings of early and mid-season tomato varieties ideal for planting have a height of 35-40 centimeters, a blossoming first brush and a developed root system. In order to provide the first conditions, the container for growing seedlings should not be small. Its volume should be 0.8-1.5 liters. When filling the pots with soil mixture, it must be compacted near the walls, otherwise with further watering it begins to move away from the walls of the pot, which is very harmful for young roots. They begin to dry out, because water evaporates very quickly in this case. If this happens, then you should add soil to these pots and compact it slightly. This should be done during the entire period of seedling growth.
Picks
It is preferable to grow seedlings withby picking. To do this, the seeds are first sown in low boxes 8-10 centimeters high. Soil is poured into the box and left to stand for several days so that the soil settles. Then, furrows are marked in the ground every 3-4 centimeters, the depth of which should be 2-3 centimeters. Furrows smaller than 2 cm should not be made, since the shoots may appear with the seed coats removed, which is undesirable. In this case, they will have to be moistened with water every hour so that the cotyledon leaves can shed them. You can remove such "caps" with a needle. Prepared seeds are laid out in the furrows at a distance of 0.5 cm from each other. You can water the soil in the box both before and after sowing. After this, the container is covered with glass or plastic wrap and placed in a warm place where the temperature is not lower than 20-25 ° C until shoots appear. You can sow tomato seeds in another way. To do this, pour soil into a prepared container to a partial height and level it. Then lay out the seeds and cover them with an even layer of soil one and a half to two centimeters thick, water them on top, then cover them and put them in a warm place. When the first one or two true leaves appear, you should pick them - plant the seedlings in a separate container. When picking, do not pull the seedlings out of the ground, but pry them under the roots from below with a small lump of soil with a small spatula or spoon. To make this easier, water the soil so that the soil is saturated to the full depth, but the plants do not have time to use this water. If the tomato stems are too elongated, then I tear off the cotyledon leaves before picking, let them dry, and then place part of the stem in a spiral in the holes up to the first true leaf. The soil around the sprout planted in the pot is compacted and watered with warm water, and then placed in a shaded place for two or three days, especially if the weather is sunny on these days. Sometimes, to avoid excessive stretching of the seedlings, you can do a double picking. The first time, the sprouts are planted in a small container with a volume of up to 200 ml, and the second time - in a liter. Each time during picking, the lower part of the stem is placed in a hole in a spiral, tearing off a couple of leaves in order to shorten the seedlings. After such a double transfer, the plants become stockier, and their root system is much better developed.
Stalking sprouts
After the first shoots appear, the container withThe seedlings are placed in a light but cool place, where the temperature during the day should be 15°C, and at night - no more than 11°C. This can be a glazed balcony or a place near the balcony doors. Some summer residents even put them on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. This procedure is necessary for the shoots so that they do not stretch out too much. If the temperature is higher, then the seedlings, quickly stretching out, can get black leg disease. Four to five days are enough for the tiny seedlings to strengthen the hypocotyl knee, and now they can be prepared for the next stage - moved to a warmer place, where the temperature during the day will be 20-24°C, and at night - 12-15°C.
Watering
Frequent watering helps the seedlingsstrongly stretches. This should be avoided and in order for the water to evaporate less, it is better to lower the temperature of the content. For watering, water should be settled, but it is better to take melted or magnetized. It must be heated. Once every two weeks, water the seedlings with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. This solution will not only disinfect the soil and the plant, but also nourish it with manganese and potassium. Try to water the seedlings in the morning, so that there is no increased humidity at night. It should be taken into account that the air in apartments with central heating is very dry, which is not good for plants. Therefore, it is necessary not only to water the plants, but also to humidify the surrounding air, for which simply place jars of water next to the seedlings. For the same purposes, you can humidify the air from a spray bottle or hang wet gauze nearby.
Transplantation into the greenhouse
Somewhere around the end of April depending on the areaseedlings can be placed in a biofuel nursery or a greenhouse. This is the ideal option for them, and the seedlings are literally transformed in this case. They become dense, stocky, dark green with close internodes. In a greenhouse, while the soil has not warmed up, the seedlings can be placed on a wooden flooring or rack.
Additional fertilizing
During the growing period, more than three additional feedings are required.seedlings do not. For this, one glass of fertilizer solution is enough for transplanted seedlings for 8-10 plants, for older seedlings the same volume is poured onto four plants. You can water with a less concentrated solution, diluting it by half with water. In this case, the amount of fertilizing will simply double. But this option is no worse. The growth and development of plants should be constantly monitored, noticing all changes and quickly taking action. Slow growth and development is often caused by a lack of some element, excess moisture, cold soil, incipient disease or pests.
- If the plants look stunted, the leavespale green, small, and the stem is thin, then the plants lack nitrogen. With an excess of nitrogen, the seedlings "grow fat": the petioles and stem are thick, and the dark green leaves are large.
- If plants do not have enough phosphorus, a violet-red hue appears on the leaves, and chlorosis on the lower leaves.
- If the plant lacks potassium, then the edges and ends of the lower leaves turn yellow. In tomato seedlings, leaves can spin down at the same time.
