Good gosh, I do three seeds per cup. Try nine or sixteen per gallon milk jug.

I've been doing six per milk jug visualizing it as about the same size as a cell pack from the garden center.

Okay! hehe... Looking over your tomato seedling pics again, Trudi... So you just leave them in cups till ready to transplant, and then separate them?

Growing tomatoes (under lights at least) looks like such a delicate operation. I was worried about damaging the roots-- guess they're pretty tough though. And didn't think there would be enough headroom in a milk jug if I put in a lot.

thanks--

trudi - really? Dang....I was gonna put one seed in each 2 liter drink bottle. Boy, do I feel retarded....BTW, I have found the ultimate container for $0.75, and will have to post about it later. You would probably put at least 50 seeds in it....Also, if I haven't told ya lately - you rock trudi!

EG

Hi Silver,

I don't bother to repot, it's a waste of my time. They go right into the ground from the cups they sprouted in. Their tops are not big, certainly not, but the roots are awesome!

EG...now you have to tell, what did you find for 75 cents?

T--the ever cheapskate.

Trudi - i'll have to show you a picture of it when I get it assembled.

EG

Done-- six plants per round juice jug, convenient as they have the six little ovals on the sides for marking.

2x each Black Krim, Black from Tula, Red Brandywine, Berkeley Tie Dye, Pink BTD, Black Cherry, Sungold OP, Isis Candy, Matt's Wild Cherry. I am hoping to live entirely off tomatoes this summer. :P

Eggplant and sweet peppers will go out tomorrow in the same fashion.

So, for a family of four who absolutely LOVE tomatoes, how many tomato plants would be suggested? ALL tomatoes will be eaten directly out of the garden (if not IN the garden). I am trying to figure out how many I need to plant. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Wish I had read about using solo cups a few months ago. Threw out dozens of 16 oz in four different colors left over from "kids" high school grad. Don't be too hard on me. "Kids" are now 35,34,30 and 28. I'm finally trying to declutter!

Regarding tomatoes, you can't really hurt them, you can shake all the dirt off the roots and pull the seedlings apart and schmuck em in the dirt and pull the dirt back over them when it's time to plant. They will grow roots all up and down the stem wherever they touch soil (even if you break the stem, you can just stick the stem in the dirt). They may pout a bit, but they will come back. Peppers and eggplant are less forgiving.

Gardenluv, it depends on what kind of tomatoes you want, how many meals you eat at home, how much you eat, and how big the #3 and #4 are. For example, my teenaged son can outeat a horde of locusts (he can keep up with about 3 Sweet 100 plants a day plus whatever else I give him - probably 3-4 pints of cherry tomatoes alone).

You're better off erring on the side of having too much if you have room, you can always freeze, can, dry, or share if you have room.

You can get 2 BLTs (the way I cut them) from a big beefsteak tomato. you really need two plants of an heirloom beefsteak in order to always have 1 or 2 on hand. You may want more than one color, so you may want 6 different plants. These also tend to come late in the season

I would say you would want at least...3 cherry tomato plants, just for salads and munching.

You may also want some salad type tomatoes, they come earlier in the season, and are good for making salsa or chopping in salad, etc. They tend to have more tomatoes on them, but smaller. (they hybrid tomatoes have more on them than the heirloom ones do)

Just to give you an idea, I have a family of 4 and had about...70 plants. I canned salsa, tomato soup, tomato sauce, and dried tomatoes, and we ate a lot of tomatoes and gave tomatoes away. Of those 70, about 12 were cherries, 20 were sauce tomatoes, and probably about 20 were beefsteak. The rest were salad types.

70 is a lot if you are not canning and giving a lot away. :) But I would have at least 12!

It's still too early for me to plant my tomatoes, but I have a plan. Thanks Trudi, for the seeds. I'm going to use the 2 ltr. bottles but cut the top much higher than normal. I'll plant the seeds (6 to 8 per cont.) in only 3 in. of potting mix. As they grow, I'll use a spoon to add more mix and let them continue to grow. After they get 3 or 4 more in. high, I'll add more mix. The idea is to have 6 or 7 in. of rooted stem by the time I transplant them out. I'm thinking having more roots per plant will improve the whole process. Does this sound like a workable plan? Can anyone think of a reason this won't work?
Conniejw