A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum Growing from seed (Have sprouts- what now!?)

I started some organic heirloom 'maters with my 9 yr old dd about 20 days ago and we have some lovely sprouts. They are in a cardboard egg carton in a kitchen (west-facing, but bright at all times) window. We used organic potting soil and put crushed eggshells in the bottom of each little "cup." In each cup, there are 2 sprouts.

Most of the sprouts are about an inch to inch and half tall and a couple are starting to show buds of first "true" leaves. They look a bit leggy to me (stems are soooo thin) but what do I know!? I thought maybe they needed more light, so I put them on the front porch yesterday for a bit more sun, but am afraid I will overdo that too and they will burn.

I'm watering them lightly about twice/thrice a day at this point and keeping the soil moist but not soaking, and trying not to get the leaves wet at all. I think I read that someplace. They get nice air-flow where they are, because there is a sliding glass door right by the window that the girls come in and out of all the time, and we use the ceiling fan pretty regularly.

Questions-

-Should I be putting them outside at all during the day now? We are in Chicago and still getting frosts at night, but day temps are pretty regularly 60s/70s F now.

-If so, what direction is best for them so as not to overdo it?

-I have a grow light I can set up (but am lazy!) Would that be my best bet right now? How many hours of light should they be getting?

-Should I do anything different, like separating them or moving them to something larger or should I just wait it out? (We want to eventually put them in an upside down hanger.)



Thanks!! I really want home-grown 'maters this year!!

Don't put them outside fully, you need to harden them off slowly...

I never use a grow light, just a window that gets full sun with a fan blowing over head..I give my seedlings 6-8 hours of full sun a day (that's all I can get out of my windows)..I don't have a full South facing window in my house.

I wait until I see roots starting to come out the bottom of my pods(plastic seedling thingy's) before I transplant to a bigger pot and then I plant them deeper in that pot(cover up more of the stem) then even deeper by the time they reach the garden...so half the stem is covered by then.

A growlight is a very nice way to insure adequate light but not altogether necessary. I sometimes grow a couple of flats of tomatoes and peppers with only direct southern exposure in a window. Also, there's not a great need to use anything but standard shoplights if you do use growlights, but do make sure you get the lights right down over the plants, no more than 2 or so inches for maximum affect. Easing them out like tamara said so that they get full sun for a couple of hours one day, another hour or so the next and so on for about a week to harden them off, but they'll love the extra light.
You'll want to transplant the tomatoes into something a little larger, I like 3 or 4 inch pots, some people use plastic or foam 16 ounce cups.Transplant at the 2 true leaf stage and do not fertilize until you do, then only half strength liquid fertilizer like a bloom formula or fish emulsion.
Sounds like tamara gets plenty of light, btw. I would say 6 to 8 hours really is optimum until they go outside full time, and it's considered the minimum in their final planting spot....direct sun will basically always give better light than growlights unless you spend a fortune.
You should notice that the plants stems get thicker as you increase the light, and the legginess should disappear.

Oh, yes, and what tamara said about burying the stems, definitely...at transplant, you can remove the cotyledons if they haven't already fallen off, and plant them so that there's an inch or so between the lowest leaves and the soil.

Just a thought-- If you are in Illinois it's WAY too early to get them outside (I'd even say way too early to harden them off unless you have a cloche or some other way of moderating the temperature). Tomatoes shouldn't be planted outside until the soil has warmed up considerably and the night time temperature is consistently over 45-50* or so.

Tamara's right on about tranplanting them to bigger pots. You're aim, by burying the stems, is to focus on getting a strong root system going now. Above ground growth with happen later.