Started these tomatoes about a month ago and they’ve grown faster than I expected.
Still around a month out until last frost (NJ), at this rate they’ll be double the size by then; any tips on what I should do?
by Apprehensive_Box_692
Vegetable Gardening
7 Comments
Ouch. Maybe take them away from too much light so they slow down?
Hello neighbor! And yeah a lot of folks here in NJ will usually start tomato seeds six weeks before last frost for that reason. They just grow too damn fast! If you have a cool basement (about 60s) where you can set up lights it’ll slow them down a bit although they’ll change to a more purple color from the cold. When it gets warmer for us you can start leaving them outside during the day if you need the space indoors just harden them off slowly. I usually start doing this when it’s constantly 60 or above, I’ve used a frost cloth too if I need it warmer. You’ll probably need to pot up soon too. Mine are about a third maybe a little more of yours rn.
They will about quadruple in size before they can go out. The pots will be verging on too small soon. I will not plant tomatoes earlier than 6 weeks before last frost for this reason. Shorter for some varieties like Costoluto Genovese, which get to 24″ plus in 6 weeks. If these were mine, here is what I would do.
* Repot into about 6 inch pots right now. A month remaining is perfect for having them overcome the shock of a repot and be ready to go out. Those 4 inchers will get super root bound in that time and may stunt your plants a bit once they go out.
* I use all grow lights for my seedlings. If using grow lights, I would reduce their light time to 8 hours per day. That will slow growth a bit without hurting the plants. If you are using a window for light, just leave them there.
* Harden them off of course during the last month. Once they’re well hardened off, I would get them outside for about 4 hours on nice sunny warm days and then give them no more light for that day. They’ll be able to maintain with only that much sun while limiting growth.
If you only have 5 plants to nurse along, that’s going to be a lot easier than if you had a lot. Make sure they’re getting an hour or so of fan each day to keep those stems strong. Even then, you may need to make little stakes to hold them up as they get big.
There is a small temperature window in which tomatoes grow little or not at all, but are not damaged by the cold in the short term. Is approximately between 5-13°C. However, if the daily average was consistently 12°C, they would die. So they need regularly warmer temps. After hardening off, I put mine outside at night when the temperatures don’t drop below 4-5°C. But as I said, you should get used to it slowly, so the first night at 10°C, the second at 8°C, etc.
In professional cultivation, they open all the greenhouse doors and windows early in the morning so that the cold breeze passes through for a short time. This leads to slowed and squat growth with short internodes.
What exactly did you use for the soil in those pots? They’re looking really healthy!
This is my first year with a real garden so I made the mistake of starting a bit too early!
I’ll definitely take your advice on repotting and shorten the grow light exposure. I have proper small seedlings that will be perfect, but I just can’t bear to say goodbye to any extra plants.
Do you think I can move them from the grow lights to a south facing window now? It’s a bit cooler by the window and it does get decent sun most days
I wish I had this problem. I started all my seeds around February 12th and they’re only a fraction of this size, barely have their first set of real leaves. Apparently I need to step it up