Cherry tomatoes seem to be the least tempramental tomatoes to grow - and yes, often are huge plants. My advice? Just buy yourself a seedling cherry tomato to start -- a sweet 100, sungold, black cherry perhaps. It will be a few dollars and give you a big head start, which is more rewarding as a beginner. You should use lots of finished compost, and a much bigger pot. If you want to germinate your own seeds and dont have the money to buy, I imagine there are hundreds of seed savers here who would mail you some winner varieties for your area. (Make sure they fermented the seeds when saving them, to prevent disease.) I have seeds but I'm in a very different climate -- what works here wont be great there.

I feel bad for the 4 seeds planted too deep. What should I do with them? It's only been 2 days since they were planted.

What I worry about is your pot size. Looks like 8 inches. Yes, cherry tomato plants grow HUGE. My vines routinely get 8-10 feet long. Vastly larger than what an 8 inch pot could handle. You could start the plants in those pots, but in a month they'll want to be in something a lot bigger and ideally the ground.

As to being seeded in a two inch hole, forget about those. I suppose you could get a spoon and delicately dig them up once they start to sprout (so they're recognizable), but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Did you read the seed packet? I can't believe it told you to plant them that deep.

Just forget them. The packet probably has at least 15-20 seeds if not more, correct? And it's only been 2 days, so it's not as though you've spent a lot of time on them. In two days, you could have tomato seeds already germinating if you put them on damp paper towel now and keep them warm and moist.

8" pot is almost certainly going to be way too small. In addition to pot size, how do you plan to support the plants? If your cherry tomatoes have an indeterminate, vining habit, they're going to be very unwieldy and be huge and flopping all over the place.

I killed those four seeds... I feel so bad...

Need to correct myself. I missed those pots were only 8" in diameter. I thought they were bigger in the photo. Sorry but I agree with the others. You cannot grow any tomato plant to a point where it will bloom and develop fruit in an 8 inch pot. So please ignore my comments on using them above.

Dave

What would be the minimum depth and diameter for one cherry t plant? I might rushed too fast with 4 (walk before you run)...

I would use 5 gal lowe's buckets MINIMUM. PLUS a huge tub of pure water for each bucket.

But see you can fert the water tub so it's like enhanced hydro.

You'll need to space them really far apart too

And cover the tubs so they don't reek.

"What would be the minimum depth and diameter for one cherry t plant? I might rushed too fast with 4 (walk before you run)..."

Please once again note that it depends on the specific variety as cherry tomato plants vary in size. Can I ask why it has to be a cherry plant? There are thousands of tomato varieties available and some great tomatoes come from much smaller plants. They just aren't cherry sized fruit.

Minimum for decent results? 12-15 gallon container. Something the approx. size of a 1/2 barrel, 24"x 24". Larger would be better. And the mix you fill it with is just as important. Can you get by with smaller? Say something 7-10 gallons. Yes but it is just a "get by" and with much less success and much more work.

Dave

Why not just put them in the ground like a normal person.

Dave: "You cannot grow any tomato plant to a point where it will bloom and develop fruit in an 8 inch pot."

False! I have a Red Robin blooming in an 8" pot right now. And a Hahm's Gelbe Topftomate in another one which is a bit young for blooms, but I foresee no problems.

*ducks for cover*

(I'm being a smartass, Aleksey, as those varieties are micro-dwarfs).

Yuan Gong Hamilton: "Why not just put them in the ground like a normal person."

...asks the person growing theirs indoors under artificial light?

*ducks for cover*

Not everybody has the real estate for OG gardening either. Although I have a very narrow strip of soil about 2 meters by 20 cm, full of rocks and dirt, again facing west. I wish I share a pic but it's 2214 now, too dark.

Can it be converted into gardening real estate, enough for tomatoes?

With artificial lighting, can fruits and veggies be grown all year-round, no matter the colder seasons?

Maybe.

Yes they can.

"With artificial lighting, can fruits and veggies be grown all year-round, no matter the colder seasons?"

Sure if you want to invest in hydroponic systems and specialty lighting fixtures and everything needed for a climate controlled environment. Greenhouse growers do it all the time. But the end result is an expensive tomato often with store-bought flavor.

Dave

Ok GB - I'll give on the micro-dwarfs. ;-) Which is why I asked why it has to be a cherry for the OP when there are so many other types that can be grown and do well in containers.

Aleksey: "Although I have a very narrow strip of soil about 2 meters by 20 cm, full of rocks and dirt, again facing west. I wish I share a pic but it's 2214 now, too dark.

Can it be converted into gardening real estate, enough for tomatoes?"

Depends on what's underneath the paving or concrete or whatever that borders it. But it's not ideal.

You can grow in containers just fine. Lots of people do it with great success. You just need large containers to get as much of the potential out of your tomatoes as possible. Results are better in ground, but sometimes, if soil-borne disease or very poor soil is a problem, container growing is actually better.

Depending on how much space you have, you should invest in some large planters if you want to grow tomatoes regularly. But since this is just an experimental year to see how you like it, you may be able to rig larger pots out of stuff lying around the house. One of those big plastic/rubber storage bins would be great, for example, since it's easy to drill a few drainage holes in the bottom. Extra large buckets, empty crates (line with heavy plastic with holes punched in or some kind of sturdy cloth if there are big gaps in it), even something like those giant tote bags for laundry or from IKEA will work, as long as you have a way to support your plants well. Also, you can probably get a deal on tomato plants right now at your local garden center, since it's late to start from seed. You probably should only grow a couple of plants this year if your goal is just to figure out if you like it and if the growing conditions on your patio are OK, so buying a couple plants shouldn't be a big expense.

UPDATE!

Is this a cherry tomato plant shoot? Or some weed?

There are some grayish mushrooms if you can spot them.

It looks like some kind of squash/melon/cuke/zuke.

Linda

The cherry tomato seed might be right at the bottom of the picture, but I can't really see.

Linda

Oi... Must be some weed then...

Aleksey,

I've never grown tomatoes from seeds before, but that very well could be a tomato. It just hasn't had its true leaves pop out, but it looks like one is about to open. It does look a bit pale though and it appears there are other weeds in the pot, I'd get those out.

Tomato cotyledons are long and oval. Not short and oval. I agree that it looks like a cucurbit. Cucurbits thrive in home compost.

From trying to grow tomatoes to... getting a cucumber plant???

I did not go over all the comments but IMO, your approach was not a good one to grow tomatoes, in general.

Number one : Normally tomato seeds are sown in a small containers (smaller than a cup) then after it grows several leaves is transplanted into a bigger pot.

The final pot/container size depend on the variety. Lik Grobelly gave and example, you can grow a micro dwarf (like Hahms Gelbe ) in 8" pot. The smallest container size for most determinants is 5 gallons and as Dave suggested 12 gallon++ is a better choice.

One more thing: Most newbies starts growing tomatoes in containers. That is much more challenging than growing in ground. Even experience gardeners sometimes have difficulties in doing that successfully. Container growing is a whole new ball game.

Sey

I know, such a hassle. Next season, I'm gonna pay the 7-10$ for grown tomato plants.

But I see plenty of them sold outside supermarkets, Home, Canadian, etc... Is it too late to get one now for fruits before fall?

Cucurbit is a family that includes cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and squash. You might think about what you threw in your compost. Home compost piles don't get hot enough to kill seeds. I get loads of cucurbit seedlings in my compost pile every spring.

Linda makes a good point. Those leaves chopped off at the bottom center of your picture look kinda like a tomato seedling.

I'll take a pic in daytime.

The plant below the cuke looks like a tomato seedling.

Aleksey: "But I see plenty of them sold outside supermarkets, Home, Canadian, etc... Is it too late to get one now for fruits before fall?"

Depends on the variety and the climate where you are. But if you don't get a very late variety and you have warm sunny weather until mid-September, you should be fine buying plants now. In places in the Northeast USA, for example, a lot of people don't plant out tender plants like peppers and tomatoes until Memorial Day, which is this weekend.

Aleksey has said that he is in Montreal, Canada. It's not too late to plant seedlings at all. I would recommend "Rose" or "Momotaro" tomatoes from Sheridan (if you like yummy pinks). I find that Brandywine is a bit late so I wouldn't recommend it. I'm sure there will be lots of varieties still to choose from.

Do you have somewhere to plant tomatoes in the ground? If not, you will need some large containers, at least the size of those big buckets that they sell in the big box stores and many people would say that even those are too small for large indeterminate tomatoes.

Linda

Aleksey, you should enter your location in your profile so that it shows up next to your name.

Any sightings of tomato shoots from these pictures? My garden newbie eyes only see weed.

You sure have a lot of the same kind of weed. The two long oval cotyledon leaves look *precisely* like tomatoes. But the leaves that follow should be strongly lobed. Not sure I see that here. May just be too early.

THIS is what you're looking for. I just pulled this pic off the web. You yourself can google "tomato seedlings", and pull a bazillion such pictures off the web.

Meanwhile, water them every day until the pots are dripping underneath, yes?

No, that's a recipe for root rot and damping off. If the soil is damp below (which it probably is), just water until the surface is damp. Let the surface dry out (maybe in a few days), and then water again. The roots are what get the water, and the roots aren't on the surface. In fact, you don't want to encourage the roots to be anywhere near the surface.

Gotcha, thx. I swear I read that tomato plants need lots of water.

You'll learn how to "read" your plants. They'll tell you when they're thirsty. They won't, unfortunately, tell you if they're drowning.

I always freak when I see the dried soil even with my indoors plants. I always equated dried with immediate watering or the plant will wither from thirst.

Pictures 1 and 3 all look like tomato seedlings to me. Picture 2 would appear to have some tomato seedlings in them as well, but those seedlings with three equal sized leaves are weeds. If you could photograph them again in a couple of days, maybe we can tell for sure.

Linda

One of the advantages to pre-germination is that you know exactly what's where.

You'll freak more when you witness "damping off". It isn't pretty. Seedlings just topple over like someone cut them with a buzz saw. Keep your soil saturated, and you'll be there.

Think about it. Roots are down deep. What you see is the surface. Roots get water for the plant, and there are no roots on the surface. A dry surface by no means means dry at depth.

You always equate dried with immediate watering? How many plants of yours have died because you didn't immediately water them when the surface was dry?

Even with those seedlings, I would still buy plants this late in the game.

Tomatoes take a long time to grow true leaves, so they have only their cotyledons (2 long first leaves) for a while after they first sprout. Anything that has more than 2 leaves at this early stage is not a tomato.

That's a fair point. In Montreal, your growing season is pretty much May-September. We're at the end of May, and you're not even sure you have seedlings. So you've used up about a quarter of your growing season looking for seedlings. Unless you're wedded to these particular plants, buying larger plants at this time might be smart.

No, tomatoes don't take a long time to grow as seedlings, as long as they're kept warm (70-75F), and they get plenty of light. But even then, it'll be several weeks before you're ready to plant out.

UPDATE:

What do you think?