There is more than one "school of thought" on that subject. A Texas man (now deceased) that went by the name of "gonefishin" that we sometimes mention here on this forum, said that when he bought tomato plants he always looked for those containers that had two plants in them. He then took them home and separated them and got two for the price of one.

I plant in tiny soil blocks and only put one seed in each block so I don't have to make that decision. LOL

Personally, I believe you can save both, but I would let them get a little bigger first. When you are handling a young seedling, you need to hold them by the leaves rather than the stem, because it crushes easily. When they are a little bigger, it is much easier to handle them. The nursery folks would probably tell you to cut one. You could always try both ways and see what works best for you.

Ezzirah,

I agree wholeheartedly with Carol on this one, including the fact that Bill P., who used to post on quite a few forums here at GW as "Gone Fishin'" always purchased two or more per pot, separated them and planted them and had a great crop. He was a great gardener and taught many of us to try techniques, methods and varieties that were new to us.

Last week I purchased six 'Bonnie Plants' tomato plants in 5" peat pots to put into 5 gallon pots for the earliest possible ripe tomatoes (should start getting ripe fruit in April!) and four of the six plants I bought had two nice, fairly large, 6-7" tall plants per pot. I deliberately chose those 4 specifically to get two plants in each pot, and would have chosen all six with 2 plants per pot except one particular variety (and I bought 2 pots of that variety) only had 1 plant per pot in every pot in the store. If I can get two plants for the price of one, I'll do it every time.

You have to try what works for you, but I've never had a problem with sowing a bunch of seeds in one small area, and then separating them and planting them into individual containers, a process called 'pricking them out'. For example, when I started my tomato and pepper seeds, I put anywhere from 4 to 18 seeds in each little square in the starter flat. That allows me to start 72 varieties in one 72-cell starter flat. I don't leave them crowded like that long. Once each plant has two true leaves (not just the two cotyledon seed leaves), I prick them out and plant each one as deeply as possible in its own Dixie cup. That's what I've been doing this past week with my two to two-and-a-half week old seedlings....pricking them out and potting them up. When you separate the plants, be sure to hold the soil in your hand and basically break it into half, or into as many pieces as you need depending on how many seedlings there are, and separate the roots. If you try to separate the plants by tugging on the above-ground portion of the plants, you can break the stems in half so always separate the plants at the root level, not the stem level. You then can handle them by either the portion of the root/soil or by the leaves but not, as Carol mentioned, by the stems because the stems are very delicate and break easily.

I have separated out about 240 plants so far this month and haven't lost but one....and it was later than its 'siblings' to sprout and grow and was very tiny compared to the others and I expected it wouldn't survive being potted up.

Some people here may remember (I know Dorothy does because she mentioned it before) when you could purchase a bundle of bare root veggie plants at stores and take them home and plant them. I remember buying cabbage, spinach collard greens, cauliflower and broccoli that way. You'd get about 25 to 50 seedlings per bundle and they were likely about 2 to 4 weeks old. They'd been grown either in field rows or flats, pulled up, had the dirt shaken off their roots, were bundled up and sold in seed and feed stores. You took them home, planted them in the ground, watered them in and they grew and produced just fine even though they often looked kind of wilted and sad when you purchased them. You did have to buy them as soon as they arrived in the stores, because they'd only survive a few days as bare-root bundles.

This was back in the day when very few folks started their own plants from seeds and it wasn't easy to find seed-starting supplies in stores. So, your choice was to direct-sow or buy bundles of seedlings and buying the seedlings got your plants (esp. cool-season seedlings) off to a faster start since most seeds are very slow to sprout in cold soils. Research has shown that pricking out seedlings while small doesn't damage the roots if done careully and may, in fact, give you stronger plants because it stimulates more root growth.

I see no point in automatically yanking out and discarding the extra plants. Of course, you have to try what works for you and then, over time, you'll develop your own way of doing things and I say if it works, do it!

For what it is worth, one of my brother's friends had a small nursery south of Fort Worth in the 1990s and he raised his own tomato plants (and other stuff) from seed in his greenhouse and then pricked them out/potted them up to sell. When he started seeds in starter flats under lights, he sowed those tomato seeds as thick as grass. He potted up and grew on all that he thought he could sell, and threw away the rest of the tiny seedlings. His potted-up seedlings always grew just fine and sold well, so I learned from him long ago that seedlings are tough and sowing large quantities of them in small space didn't hurt the quality or growth of his plants.

If you only have a couple of plants per cell, you could leave them together for weeks and weeks....the ones I bought last week that have 2 plants per pot have stems about as big in diameter as the tip of my little finger, are perfectly healthy and some have blooms....being 2 plants per pot hasn't hurt them at all. I do separate them and plant them in separate pots when I move them from the large peat pot to the 5-gallon container.

I have found that as long as you follow a few logical common sense 'rules' in gardening, you will have equal success no matter which sort of seed-starting or growing method you choose. It seems to me that you can break about 98% of the 'gardening rules' with no consequence whatsoever, so I say that 'gardening rules are made to be broken'.

Dawn

I agree with all that has been said. I always leave the extra plants in a cell. Then separate and pot them up. I know several who grow large numbers to sell who do it that way. One is a grower named Craig who Dawn and others on here know from other forums. He has done it for years and has a post about his method on another forum. I have separated them when only a few days old. Prefer to leave them longer as the stem in stronger and not as easy to damage. Just gently seperate the roots. If they have some size and I feel I might of tore a few roots when seperating them I water them well in their new pot and put them away from direct light for a day. I hardly ever lose any when dividing them. Great luck with your plants. Jay

Because my germination bench is smaller than I would like for it to be, I double plant my broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, but not the peas in the peat plants because peas, snowpeas, don't transplant well and when I tried planting two seeds to a peat pot, I wasn't happy with the results, as I planted the pots with two seedlings up. Anyway, in the past I have snipped off the extra broccoli seedling for salads, but seeds are more expensive now and I'm space challenged. So I start two seeds in each section of a ninepack--6 packs to a flat--and after they get up a bit--a couple weeks--prick out one seedling and pot another flat of packs to grow on to the six week setting out date. Do the same with tomatoes and pappers. And like Dawn I look for pots with two plants per pot and only occasionaly lose one. I am careful when I plant into my ninepacks to plant the seeds in separate holes that I poke with a pencil. That way I do less damage to each seedling getting it moved, as I cut down the center of the cell with a knife and lift out one seedling with it's soil then add soil to the original flat. Hope this makes sense. It's tired and I'm late.