You didn't mention what zone you're in but in my zone 5 here in New York it would be too soon to set plants out as tender as tomatoes for harding off.

Consider potting them up, say into 16 oz opaque plastic cups with holes poked in the bottom, if nothing else. Supposing you don't have too many plants. Use soil-less media.

If you do pot up, be sure to cut off any plastic netting that may be holding the "muffins" together before transplanting them or they'll likely struggle and waste energy.

Fertilize lightly and they should be good if healthy for a few more weeks before you'll need to do something else with them.

Cheers

Shortly after the second set starting growing, the tomatoes have been falling over and almost turning a little brown...

This sounds like a disease of some sort. Are they damping off?

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Damping Off

Thanks all... I should clarify a mistake in my description.

They aren't turning brown, the first set of leaves that appeared are yellowy, while the second set is still green! They don't look any worse today than they did 2-3 days ago. The plants that are falling over and the ones that are still standing straight up look the same in terms of coloring.

If they are damping off, will they completely die or turn brown or something? Right now they are still giving me hope but I am accepting that I might have to cheat and buy some prestarted tomatoes from lowes soon

nina_lee

Take the advice of those who told you to put the plants in a larger growing container with plenty of drainage and carefully remove that netting. I use the 16-oz. styrofoam cups that I can get from the Dollar Store. Then you can write on them to record the name, too.

Your plants are probably root-bound and NEED MORE SPACE, particularly if you can't set them out in the 6-8 weeks recommended after germination. They sometimes cannot get air, water, or nourishment if the roots are tightly packed together.

Do it quickly or your plants may become so stressed that they won't recover if they're already falling over because they need more root-room.

Is it possible you are describing the cotyledon, they look like leaves but are really part of the seeds. These do turn yellow as the plant matures. These store energy for the tomatoes (and same for most other plants). True leaves come after. It's at this point you begin to transplant.

the cause for the plants falling over is possibly a temporary shock from having been lifted. I would suggest next time to use styrofoam cups for planting. When you do need to top up, don't lift the seedling. Just add more soil up to the first set of true leaves.

Or perhaps it sat too shallow in the soil and it's falling over. Plus transplant shock.

I doubt it's anything that's a damping off because they'd be dead by now if that's the situation. Of course it did sound that way at first but your second description made me think otherwise.

Thanks everyone!! The yellow leaves are the cotyledon leaves (had to look it up, my first year gardening)! The first true set of leaves are barely there, but they are there and those are still green. They began faling over before I ever touched them, so I'm hoping it's just a combination of needing more root room, wind (weren't protected when outside) and me watering them from above with the hose set to 'shower'.

I happened to have some 9oz plastic cups around, they are more fat and wide. I stabbed a few holes in them and moved my plants to those. I only had miracle gro organic garden soil on hand so I hope that doesn't kill them.

I had 2 tomatoes growing in each little disc before so when I transplanted them to cups I separated some and left some together. I'm curious how they will hold up in the next few days... hopefully they don't go into shock or die on me!

What should I use to fertilize the tomatoes? Is now even the time to do that? My stepdad mentioned 10,10,10 recently and I have the typical Miracle Grow pellets that I sometimes use on my perennials.

I would suggest bottom watering. Set them in a shallow amount of water and let it soak up through the holes you stabbed in the cup (assuming holes are in the bottom of the cup)

Tomatoes are pretty resilient, so don't worry or ever give up on them. I always have a few tomatoes that seem to fall over from rot at the soilline after I transplant them, and I just stab a hole in the dirt and rebury the stem and they grow. Heck, I have done the same thing after a hailstorm snapped off a few plants....Just jabbed the top part down in the mud. Pretty amazing what they will withstand.

Nina, showering water on young tomatoes will cause the falling over you have described. I water at the base or from the bottom. It's better and will cause less injuries on the leavess.

I;ll leave the fertilizing advise for others. I'm still trying out different formulas to see which work for me.