Rather than buy plants this year, I decided I wanted to get a jump start on things and grow from seeds. So what I ended up doing was getting a heating mat to place under the flats, and then built a rack to go over top of the flats out of a closet shelf and some pavers. This then gave me a spot to place the lights directly over the flats. I am curious what everyone else does.
A couple shots:
The basic plan is to plant outdoors very early and keep an entire set of back-up plants inside in case of frost. If need be, I will just re-plant outside. And then, I will most likely have a lot of seedlings to give away.
I think you’ve got a good set up, Kenneth; I made a box to do the same on two levels with four fluorescent bulbs per level, and with the ability to lower the sliding shelves as the plants got taller.
Lots of light is good, like 15-18 hours/day. You might need to pot your plants up at least once, (put them into bigger pots to keep them from getting root bound, although the pots you’re using are already fair sized.) Before you set them out in the garden for good, give them a number of hours outdoors in a protected location, over several days, to let them harden off.
Ananas Noir
Beefsteak
Isis Candy
Black Krim
Cherokee Purple
Green Zebra
Hillbilly Potato Leaf
Jaune Flamme
Beams Yellow Pair
Kellogg’s Breakfast
Mortage Lifter
Eva Purple Ball
Brandywine Red
Brandywine Pink
Gold Medal
plus 2 other s I can’t think of at the moment.
All x 3. I will just use bricks to adjust height as needed. Not a particularly sophisticated rig, but it was cheap and functional enough.
20 years ago, if I’d had this set-up, I probably would have been growing something else lol. As it is now, at night there is a bluish glow pouring out of the office windows. The girlfriend just shakes her head and mutters something about “how that looks” repeatedly. Too damn much trouble to move, so it stays.
My spouse uses a heat pad with plants in a south facing window initially. Then moves to flourescent lights, close to tops, and heat pad with fan blowing periodically to stimulate growth and root development. Then after ~6 weeks moves them for short stints outside into a plastic greenhouse to help with the harden off process. After a couple of weeks…or when soil warms… plants them outside in the garden. This guy has the lighting thing down and there are many youtube videos he has created on light sources…http://www.tomorrowsgarden.net/ . Gary
Let us know how this works having the seedlings outside early. What area of the country exactly? When I grew up on Long Island, my parents would start young plants in a “greenhouse” they created with wood frames covered by old storm doors.
They found if they tried to plant a week or two earlier than recommended, the plants were a month or so behind those planted later.
That is a lot of tomato plants! We had three varieties times four last year. A cool summer did not favor the larger tomatoes, but the yellow pear were prolific.
We bought small plants at the local farmers market that came four to a gallon container.
I wet a paper towel, fold it a bit, place 5 seeds on it and then fold it again. Then I put it in a plastic bag and put it on the heating mats. When the seeds sprout I put them in 6 ounce styrofoam cuts with soiless seed mix (its mostly peat moss) and then place them under a 4 T-8 bulb fixture. I use 2 warm lights and two cool ones.
I put lights no more than 3 inches or so from the top of the plants so they get maximum energy from the lights and they dont stretch up and get leggy looking for more light.
Hmmn, I just put the seeds in an organic peat potting mixture and covered them 1/4" or so. I spritz them with a water bottle twice a day. Didn’t think to sprout them first, but I am only a couple days in and have plenty more seeds if I need them. My lights are currently about 10" above the pots, but I can adjust easily- I bought a mixture of bricks and pavers so I could adjust as needed. I have a rotating fan that I will use in the room when they sprout to promote healthy stems- that is the plan anyway. I also used slightly larger potting containers so i could grow them bit indoors without having to re-pot. I also plan to “harden” them for a couple days before planting. Thanks for the tips Berry- do you think I should move the lights down to get them to sprout faster/better? For that matter, I am open to critique by anyone with experience.
Nancy- Interesting observation about when to plant. I purposely sowed 3x as many as needed so I can recover if something goes awry. If the indoor ones do better, I will transplant them later and give away the others.
Gary- Thanks for the link and observations.
I am in Northern VA, so it often heats up here fairly early- we’ll just have to see, every year is different. My thought was that if we have a warm spring I want them in early, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll go to plan B.
If I missed anyone else, thanks to all- my primary goal with the post was to find out the best way to do this. I have had quite a bit of success buying seedlings in the past, but I really wanted to get the crop going as early as possible this year as I normally can’t harvest anything until sometime in July. Occasionally found and splurged on large plants early and they always produce quite bit earlier, hence my plan.
Now, hopefully they will grow well and my compost pile will do it’s magic in the garden.
The reasons I went with the paper bag method is most people report it as quicker with a beter germination rate. Also, I like to cull out seeds that arent going to germinate before I put them in the pots.
It will likely be ok, but thats deeper than most experienced growers seem to recommend. Most people try and put as little dirt as possible over the seeds.
Heat and moisture will be what causes your seeds to sprout. You dont even need to have your lights on right now. Once the seeds sprout move the lights as close as possible to seedlings. Thats a point that is stressed alot in the reading Ive done.
Take a temperature of your soil if you can. How warm is it? Try to get it to 80 to 85 degrees. That was the range my seeds seemed to like best.
What kind of lights are those? Are you sure they are in a spectrum the plants need?
Ironically, lights made for plants often arent powerful enough for tomatoes. Most recommedations that I saw were for the soft/warm combo that Im using.
Temp ranges from about 81 to 84 in the ones I checked, so good there and I will keep them moist. The room is cold, so i will just leave the lights on to keep the temp there- they don’t put off much heat, but if it is perfect now I will keep it that way… Not sure about the lights- I got them from a friend who used them years ago to do some indoor gardening. He said they worked well for starting plants, but we’ll see if that is good for tomatoes as i don’t think that was what he was growing . I will move them down when I see sprouts. If that doesn’t work in the next week or so, I will bag some and go from there.
Wasn’t sure about the light time- I have heard 18-6 is good, but will probably just go with off when I am asleep.
Thanks for the links, I will check them out. If ever in DC, please look me up- Dead will be playing, Burgundy will be uncorked, and we will eat well. Peace and thanks again.
Good chance we will be out that way for a wine country visit in the next 1 1/2 years(i have a couple domestic reward tickets and we were discussing that as an option). Dunno how close it is from Sonoma’ish or maybe even Anderson Valley (One of the two probably where I will rent a a place for a week or so), but if close enough, I will let you know and would love to pull some corks.
Napa will always have a little spot in my heart as it was my first wine country destination with a friend right after college. Probably '95 or so. It was pretty cool then. Last time I went, I couldn’t leave fast enough. For me the experience there is, err was, everything and I even enjoy the wines at times. Not what it used to be. But I found Sonoma and AV to be very cool. Would love to check out the Santa Cruz Mountains as well. End of the day, i will probably still buy 90%+ French, but still love to visit and taste. Plus with free tickets and no terrible exchange rate, It might even be a reasonable trip expense wise. I’ll drop you a pm when we plan a trip and see what happens.
The lighting issue is intensity and duration. 18 on and 6 off is good for light. Use a timer to get the cycle going. I wouldn’t worry at this point on light spectrum as you are trying to get good vegetal growth which your fluorescents will provide. For intensity keeping the light(your type) close to the plant is important. Don’t forget a period air movement once they are above ground or run your hands along the seedlings…Gary
Do not set into the ground until soil temperature is 60 deg F or greater. The best way to get the plants in early is to put out black weed barrier mulch onto raised beds. Both methods will allow for faster warming of your soil. The weed barrier has two additional benefits - weed control and prevention of soil organisms that cause verticillium and fusarium wilt from splashing onto the leaves during rain. You can see the technique in the back of the following picture where the stakes are located:
Another common technique for getting early tomatoes is to put a contraption called a “wall o’ water” around each plant. This will help keep nightime temperatures above 55 deg F which is also crucial to strong tomato growth and will also help warm the soil earlier. This contraption will also help extend the growing season in the fall for other frost sensitive vegetables. I think they run around $1.50 each in quantities of 50.
![[highfive.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/d/db21b9263a9105e51f6f8b11e61dd4de095611f9.gif "highfive"){kind=small}
. I will move them down when I see sprouts. If that doesn’t work in the next week or so, I will bag some and go from there.