Has anyone started their toms yet?

[GardenFan]

Growing this year

Black Cherry (T&M)
Back Russian (POD)
White Tom (POD)
Stripey Tom (T&M)
Sub Artic (T&M)

Black Cherry I have only just started but the rest I started the 1st week of Feb and they are all around 5/6 inches now.

I was keen to try sub artic as I hear it can ripen at lower temps than others so the crop should be good. However, it's a little pain to get past the seedling point it comes up good but then keels over. I have had four do this on me

[Alice]

Hello Gardenfan, You don't say if you have grown Toms before or how experienced you are or what kind of facilities you have for them. I think some grapes have started some toms, but maybe they have them in a heated greenhouse. You can't put them outside, or in an unheated greenhouse until all risk of frost is past. They grow quite quickly, so if you start them too early they are liable to be too big for the windowsill before you are able to put them out. You say you're sub arctic keels over. How many leaves do they have, or are they just drawn up for want of light with nothing but seed leaves. Maybe you're a wee bit too early for toms. I don't plant until the middle of March. But see what other grapes think.

[greenlung]

Hi - I resist the temptation to start off tomatoes until mid March, though I've got a few which have sprouted from compost, which I'm mollycoddling indoors with plastic bags on their heads ; )

[GardenFan]

Hi Alice,

This is my third year of growing toms

The toms start life in-doors in a heated propegator and when germinated stay in a un-heated propegator when the first true leaves are over a few inches they then live in the greenhouse. I have about 8 toms growing away now. I start as early as I can so that I get enough days of summer sun for them to ripen and to avoid any blight problems. A trick I use in the greenhouse is use a deep clear plastic box (from any DIY shop) and fill it with straw or hay, the pots then go into the box to help insulate against any drops in temp. I over winter sweet pears like this too

I have managed to get two sub artics going but the others died. These are sown in doors and tend to keel over before reaching the first true leaf stage. I am putting it down to the fact that sowing this early in the year is tricky due to natural light levels (I could use a light lamp - why don't they make propegators with light lamps built in )

The march sowing point is neally here so future sowings will hopefully go ok.

[Earthbabe]

I've started off some Balconi Yellow and Tumbler indoors in a heated propagator. Morty gave me a darling little gardener's delight the other day from her 1st jan enthusiastic sowings. (Well she gave me two but one has been slugged

My sub-arctics did quite well last year. No probs getting them to germinate or anything, although I was a bit later putting them in.

[mrskp]

I've a ridiculous variety of toms to grow this year and purely as a early trial, I'm now looking at 6 baby Tigerella all with first true leaves on sitting on the windowsill. Last year which was my first, I had Totem and Gartenperle which did reasonably well and gave me an excuse to try some different ones this year.

I've also started some Gardeners Delight (which have germinated) and Black Cherry (which haven't). All are still indoors atm having started life in a leccy propotator til germination, then promoted to the ironing board and window sills.

I've started early so that if they all fail, I can start again. I'm aiming on getting two good plants (6 of each sown) of each the 13 varieties I've got sitting in the seed box.

If everything works, I'll be giving lots away !

[Morty_007]

Hi all,
My sowing timetable for my toms has been a little unorthodox this year as EB alluded to in post above....I did indeed sow 3 varieties of toms (Moneymaker, gardeners delight and Super marmandes) on the 1st January this year. They were an experiment really but so far seem to be strong and healthy. I sowed them in containers inside on the dining room table and then took them ut to a plastic greenhouse in the conservatory. They vary from about an inch in height to about 3 inches now and nice and strong....I think the trouble is going to come when they outgrow the mini geenhouse and conservatory and it's still too early to put them out....Triffids anyone?

EB, i'll sort you out a couple more GD's, plenty more where they came from! Ring me a bit later in the week if you like and pop around for a glass of something (with lil miss and Mr, unless you want to escape for a bit )

Not sure if this answers your question OP, sorry if not!

Morty
xx

[Alison]

Will be sowing mine mid March as I have for the past few years - no room at the moment anyway, prime spots for germinating full of chillis, peppers and aubergines!

[Earthbabe]

Mrskp you have my respect. Best use of an ironing board I have come across

[Mrs Dobby]

We are growing 11 varieties of tomato this year, and are aiming at growing 4 plants of each, 1 to go into the greenhouse, 1 outside ()where possible), 1 in a tub and 1 in the garden, all as a trial to work out where each one does the best!

Currently we've 5 beefsteaks that are about 5" high, 3 Ildi, 3 Gartenperle, 2 Black Prince, 1 Balconi Yellow, 1 Lilliput, 1 F1 Sweet Million and 1 Tigerella that have just come out of a propogator and are reaching second leaf stages, currently we are trying to propogate our 11 varieties of chilli and some aubergines before we start to do any more toms, that way we should have a well spaced out harvest of the toms!

Use of ironing board does sound good, we've Mr D's weight bench covered in seedlings in the rather cool loft conversion atm, the leeks and shallots are doing really well on it!

[muckdiva]

I had a very old pack of yellow perfection toms which I did a germination test on a week or two back. Quite a few sprouted, so I thought I might as well see if they would grow on. They seem to be doing ok, though a couple are having problems extracting their leaves from seed casing (I managed to behead a couple trying to remove it, so have decided not to interfere any more!) They are in my windowsill now, but I've no idea if they will get too leggy. I like the idea of the insulated clear plastic box and might give this a try - but am I right in thinking it's the plastic lidded storage boxes you mean Gardenfan??

[smallblueplanet]

Just couldn't wait any longer and have today put 36 seeds (2 each of 18 different varieties !) in the heated propagator. Think we'll put some French marigolds in for companion planting, tomorrow.

[Mrs Dobby]

Just couldn't wait any longer and have today put 36 seeds (2 each of 18 different varieties) in the heated propagator. Think we'll put some French marigolds in for companion planting, tomorrow.

And I thought we were bad with 11 varieties! Ye Gods SBP, wot you gonna do with all those Toms?

[beefy]

Got 12 Gardeners Delight about 2-3 inches tall in the greenhouse at work

[Protea]

Last weekend i pricked out my first tomato sowings - Sungold and Vanessa. Only one of my Vanessa seeds germinated from my first sowing, which was a little odd, so i'm doing a second one. I only need 3 or 4 good plants to choose from but just one is asking for trouble! The germination on the Sungold was excellent -quick and really uniform (but i've never had a problem with this variety). Both these varieties are going into the greenhouse, so an early sowing produces more fruit

I'm waiting until mid-March to sow my outdoor toms (Sub-Arctic Plenty), i don't want them to produce lots of soft growth on the windowsill since they'll be going out into the rather exposed lottie