Growing Tomatoes from Seeds

Why grow tomatoes from seed? If you’ve never bitten into a fragrant, vine-ripened, sun-warmed tomato harvested fresh from your own garden, you haven’t tasted a real tomato – and they’re so easy to grow.

Removing tomato seeds

After removing the tomato seeds, give the seeds a quick rinse to remove any tomato juice from the seed. The tomato seeds are ready for gardening and should be planted within seven days of removal to prevent the seeds from contamination.

Planting tomato seeds

You can start your seeds in just about anything that holds soil and has drainage holes. Place three or four seeds into each small pot or each cell tray. If you are using wide or big pot, give each seed its own individual section.

Cover the pot with plastic wrap for seven to to days. This process is the germination period, a process that softens the shells to assist the sprouting of the plant. Place the pots in a warm spot. At this point, the seeds don’t need light.

Check pots daily. Keep the mix moist but not soaking wet. As soon as you see sprouts, remove the covering and place the pots in a sunny window or under grow lights, keeping the lights just an inch or two above the tops of the plants.

Once your tomato seedling has true leaves, it’s time to start feeding it. Any good liquid fertilizer can be used once a week. Dilute it to half the label recommended dose. Light is critical now. Keep your tomato seedlings close to your sunny window or grow lights and rotate the plants if they seem to be growing or leaning in one direction.

When the tomato seedlings are two to three inches tall and have a couple of sets of true leaves, it’s time to pot them up or move them into larger pots of their own. You should transplant individual tomato seedlings into bigger pots, to continue growing stronger