Tomato Plants From Seed

[bookend]

I'm about to sow my tomato seeds for the umpteenth year in a row. The varieties I use are the old favourites such as Ailsa Craig, Alicante, Shirley and Gardners Delight.
.
I've got a couple of heated windowsill propagators on south facing windows and the seeds are sown in very finely sieved multi-purpose compost in cell trays and placed in the propagators. When the weather becomes milder, the tomatoes are transferred to an unheated N-S orientated unheated greenhouse for growing on.

I've been to B&Q this afternoon and have gazed jealously upon the tomato plants they have for sale. They are all, sturdy, short well built specimens with plenty of foliage and not a lanky plant to be seen anywhere.

My plants on the other hand, end up lanky year in year out no matter how I grow them.

Could anyone give me some advice about where I may be going wrong please?

Thank you.

[slinkycat]

How much light does your greenhouse get each day? Just ask because I made the mistake of putting my greenhouse in the yard, which although reasonably light, does not get enough full sunlight each day, which can make tomatoes rather lanky.
Other than that, just make sure you prick them out as soon as the first "true" leaves have formed, and pot them into their final large pots before they get lanky.
By the way, I've had more sucess with ones I've planted out in a sunny border than in the greenhouse, they were sturdier and very prolific - apart from last year when it was far too damp- a very bad year for tomatoes!

[bookend]

Thanks slinkycat

The greenhouse gets good light most of the day. What I find is that the seedlings seem to grow like mad in the propagator on the windowsill once they've emerged. Even before they form their first true leaves, that wisp of a stem seems to grow in front of my eyes.

What I do then is to transplant the seedlings affected into deeper pots with the seed leaves (not the true leaves which won't have formed yet) almost resting on the soil surface. This slows the growth for a while as that little stem then becomes roots but the seedling is soon growing at a rate of knots again. When I carry on like this, I end up with a relatively small plant in a huge pot. The maddening thing is that even in these circumstances, the plants are still leggy.

[Twenty20]

Our tomato plants get leggy if we keep them indoors too long - ours are usually started off in the conservatory. Also, if we get impatient and plant the seeds too early in the year we get leggy plants.

The plants you see in the garden centres are probably grown in large heated greenhouses where they get a lot of light and heat early on.

[Trixie2]

Perhaps you're spoiling them with kindness. I have a small, unheated greenhouse in a part shaded area. (Unfortunately I don't have an alternative site). I use multi- purpose compost which I do not bother to sieve. My seeds go into standard plastic trays which are placed in the unheated greenhouse. I usually do this mid March. My plants develop slowly but sturdily. They stay in the trays until they are 2 - 3" tall. I then transplant them into their final pots/growbags and wait until the first flowers show before I feed them. I f there was a society for the prevention of cruelty to tomatoes, I would probably go to jail but it works well for me.

[theonlyone]

When you pot the seedlings on make
sure you plant them deep in the pots...
it should stop them going leggy ...

[jake-the-peg]

Yep, not enough light = leggy seedlings, they're reaching trying to find better light.

Get them off of the window sill and into the greenhouse before they start to go leggy.

I'm South Midlands and put my tomato seedlings in an unheated greenhouse about 2 weeks ago.

2 of the 3 varieties germinated and are growingfine.

I brought some other seeds that didn't germinate in for a blast of heat and whilst they came up a couple of rhubarb seedlings that were in the tray wen't all leggy on the window sill. I was pretty sure they woukd but I had enough others.

You can only eat so much rhubarb!

[bookend]

Thank you all very much. I've sown my first batch of seeds this afternoon in a cell tray on the greenhouse staging. I'll bring the tray in each night and return them to the greenhouse in the morning. I'm not going to pamper them this year as per your advice and see what happens.

Thanks again..

[Whoever]

I've come to the conclusion that heated propagators do tomato seeds more harm than good because the seeds grow very quickly once the first two leaves appear and this, and insufficient light, make them grow very leggy. I sowed my seeds yesterday and until the germinate they will be on a lounge window sill. The moment the first two leaves appear I'll transfer them to my little four shelved plastic covered greenhouse where they will get more all-round light. The plants you currently see in garden centres are grown in expensive well lit heated conditions and we amateur growers find it very difficult to replicate them. I sow my tomatoes with 2 seeds to each 3 inch pot and remove the weaker seedling, which saves the time and trouble of potting them on and this works for me, as long as I don't sow them too early and let them get leggy. But if this happens, I have a lot of large 5 litre square mineral water bottles with the bottom scut off, and I plant my tomatoes outside early in their final location and cover each one with its individual cloche. If your plants do end up being a little lanky, plant them out in extra deep holes where they might start growing a few extra roots further up the stem near the surface of the soil.

[bookend]

Thanks Whoever. Clearly, it's about time I stopped pampering the plants once they emerge. Once this batch form the first leaves, I'll put them out the greenhouse to see what happens. The greenhouse has much more light than I can ever hope to provide indoors.