I was at southwood nursery yesterday and they have a ton of 1.5-2 foot tall tomatoes 50% off about $3.50. Nothing exotic just the normal big boy, roma, brandywine, etc. They looked very healthy I think they just started them too early and now they are too big for normal sales.

mike

Dody, every year I but healthy tomato plants (anywhere I can find them) before the stores let them get crappy looking and pot them up and let them grow till planting time. This year I have bought 3 Better Boy and 1 Sun Sugar.

There is one kind of my tomatoes that are much smaller than the others. I don't remember which one but think it may be Rutgers or Ark. Traveler. I must have 200 plants, I pinched off one that did not look healthy.

I would say buy a few and try for some early tomatoes. The ones you have may come on like crazy and make a great fall crop, and if they don't you will have some tomatoes anyway.

Was it the last of Feb.? If the seeds were planted a month ago they wouldn't be as big as some you see for sale. But you should have seen progress each week in their growth. Ones planted in the first part of Feb. should be big plants by now. Once plants are stunted they are slow to recover. I would buy the healthy ones and not use the potting mix you used next year. It sounds like your potting mix stayed too wet. I used different potting mixes and there is a big difference in my plants. Every week I have to adjust the lights higher; they grow fast if they are in the right mix. I am so glad to finally see the sun today. My petunias are going out in a shady place to get used to out doors.

Hi, Dody. I had shall we say, "issues", with my tomato seedlings last year. Just didn't grow. I finally removed them from their starter mix and potted them up into slightly larger pots. If they were in 2 or 3" pots, I put them in 6" pots. After that they took off.......FINALLY. I winter sowed them, though, and our weather was wacky last spring. I would pot up one or two of them to see if that helps. Fresh new soil offers a new outlook on life sometimes!

Susan

hi all. i started them at the beginning of feb. the 2nd to be exact... i used the jiffy mix, and yes, i didn't get the watering right....and i think i messed up on the fertilizing as well, (when, how often, etc) I got some tomoates at the store, but i won't give up on these babies o' mine. i'll try potting them up again and just keep plugging away with them...only my 2nd year starting from seed, so that fact that i have ANY alive at this point is an improvement over last year. Ha! love the learning process, but i just feel horrible when i kill them....

dody :)

Dawn and other gardeners here can use Jiffy Mix but I can't; you have to be good at judging how much water they need with Jiffy Mix. The ones I started in Jiffy Mix have no roots. The ones I planted in Farard's BBB with perlite that I added extra are out growing my shelves; I can't put my lights any higher.

Dody,

I think buying healthy full-sized plants probably was a good decision given the fact that the heat is arriving early this year and it will be important to get good fruit set early.

Congrats on getting further this year with your seedlings than you did last year. Progress is good and I bet your next round of seed starting will be even better.

Now let's see if we can figure out why your seedlings are so small.

Have you potted up your seedlings once already or are they still in the Jiffy Mix you started them in?

If you were overwatering, that can impede root development and that would explain the small size. Indoor lighting also could explain the short little green plants because it just isn't strong enough to produce rapid growth or large plants . I think you must have had the fertilizer somewhat right or they wouldn't be a good color.

Once you figure out what went right this year and what went wrong, you can make a mental note about what to do the same way next year and what to change.

My best guess is that when you were overwatering, the excess moisture impeded root development and that negatively affected the development of the plants. Also, if you leave them in Jiffy Mix too long, their growth stalls because it is strictly a starter mix and contains no nutrition whatsoever. I pot up from the Jiffy Mix in flats to MG potting soil in cups as soon as the plants have two true leaves, which is when they're about two weeks old.

Weaker indoor lighting could have contributed to slow growth but since they are so short, you can't say they got leggy so they must have had fairly good lighting or they'd be leggy by now.

I understand how you felt when you saw the big, robust plants at the store. This year, our Wal-Mart had good-sized tomato plants while mine were just an inch tall. It is hard to look at those gigantic plants in the store and compare them to mine at home.

I think your tomato plants will be fine for fall tomatoes if you can get them to grow a little bit, but don't push them hard with excessive fertilizer. You want them to be the right size to go into the ground in May or June for fall tomatoes and if they get big really quickly, they'll be ready too early.

Dawn

Correction what I used was Fafard 3B mix not what I wrote.

This is my first year growing from seed. So far, so good (minus a watermelon not getting enough light...problem now remedied). I started my seed with a germination mat in Organic Miracle Grow potting mix with fertilizer mixed into the soil. I also fertilized with a comfrey tea mixture diluted 1:9. So far, I've been lucky. Things are coming along great. The only downfall I've had was realizing that my Brandywine tomatoes that I started (that look just beautiful) are Amish Brandywine's and not Sudduth Brandywine's. Ahhhhh well.

But to fix your tomato problem: This worked for me and my tomatoes--and it is scientifically proven! If you want stockier, healthier plants, rub the stems of your tomatoes, or any plant grown indoors really, several times a day. It stimulates the plant to develop a stronger root system and thicken its stem wall. In scientific terms, this is known as manual thigmomorphogenesis.

Also, I learned a lot about growing tomatoes from Youtube and from reading Dawn's posts (I swear that woman needs a show on HGTV). The guy on Youtube I particularly like to watch is named Ray. I've linked his channel below.

I also talk to my seedlings and tell them to grow "big and strong."

Hope that helps, Dody.

Kelly

Here is a link that might be useful: Praxxus55712 Youtube Channel