Tomato Plants way too early, needs so advice.

Hi, so I am all set for my pepper plants now, but my mom got excited and planted her tomato seeds the same time I planted my 2nd set of pepper plants (it was about 3 weeks ago....) so now there are some that are about 10" or so, and some that were shocked because she was having trouble handling the seeds and put about 3-4 per Jiffy pellet so when we transplanted those, the roots were damaged and they are slow to recover but they are recovering. My mom usually doesn't plant until march in an outdoor mini greenhouse that we had, and since last winter, the greenhouse was torn up from a storm, she just bought all her tomato plants from the local nursery.. but with me growing all my pepper plants inside and early this year with a grow room/HID lights ect.. I got her some seeds to try.

So needless to say, we defiantly jumped the gun on the tomatoes, but since I would like to keep them alive, and I should be able to figure out room for them to grow (I bought her another mini greenhouse for Christmas this year to replace the one that was destroyed, it is about 6x4' I think and I can stick that in the basement next to my grow tent) what can I do to help these things go... by now the larger ones would be in the ground, but since that is definitely not possible yet, how should we go about growing them in containers until we can get them outside.. I have plenty of 1 gallon pots which I would like to keep them in until they go in the ground, and there are about... 35 plants I think that are in party cups.

As I said the larger ones were doing great, but just started curling a little and stuff.. I think I have a partial pic of them.. but not of how they look now (they just started wilting today for the most part) and I haven't watered them in a little while because my pepper plants were getting edema and it is pretty humid in there, but I just watered them to see if that would help at all.


Ok well I don't have a picture right now but I will get one tomorrow after classes but until then, if anyone can give me some advice on how to grow these tomato plants until it gets warm enough, large ones are about 10-12", smaller ones are only about 4-5"

thanks,
-max

Maters grow way too fast. They get root bound quick in containers. I would milk them along til time to put in the ground. Then hopefully they will rebound.

Yes you started way to early for tomatoes. Most seed packets of tomatoes have dozens of seeds. Not to be a downer but looking where your located I'd imagine you can't plant out until May. Tomatoes are more hardy than peppers. You still need to harden them off outdoors for about 2 wks. They can sunscald very easy if not acclimated to the outdoor climate and sun strength for progressive lengths of time each day. I would reseed in march. You do need a strong indoor light source or a sunny south facing window. If the plants get leggy from reaching the light you can always trench plant if planting in the ground. That's how I plant. I strip allthe leaves off but the top 2 sets . Then dig a shallow trench laying the root ball first the laying the stem down gently bending the upper growth above the soil iine. You can support the top growth with a bamboo stake until the plant developes upward growth. Just remember that with a tomato plant the roots will grow out of any part of the stem that's buried, resulting in a larger faster growing plant.

Bottom line, reseed at a later date. I start mine March 1st for an outdoor planting mid May. My plants are usually about a foot and a half stocky tall with flowers on them...

Greg

hmm, yea, well I have an HID light and stuff, enough light for the tomatoes to grow(just got a 600w HID light for my pepper grow tent, and the light in the tent now is a 400w HID light, I also have a 130w XtremeLED light which puts out about the same as a 400w HID light (as it says in the manual/box, and I also measured it with light meter and it is surprisingly really strong), but like I said the containers and space is slightly an issue for the number of plants, if they didn't get any bigger than 2-2 1/2' tall by the time mid april comes around ( can put them out into the mini greenhouse outside to harden off for the last couple weeks in april) then it would be fine, but I am worried about how big they get.. and I guess I will have to get them right into bigger pots..if anything I do have 3 southern facing windows that get a ton of light where I have my aloe plants growing and my mom has a few flowers there, I could just put some of the tomato plants there if the mini greenhouse and my grow tent fill up

I will end up reseeding a whole new set of tomato plants like you said in march, but I would like to try to keep these going to see if I can keep them till spring time.. if most of them die.. then oh well, I will have the back up ones.. but until then, I would rather not kill them right off..

but that is good to know the time line on how fast these things grow.. I just never paid attention to whatever my mom was growing.. I just did the tilling and paid attention to my pepper plants and the horseradish plants I have, (which are nuts how easily they spread)

but just for kicks now, I have a video that i posted in another thread about the edema and the new fan I had setup (the fan is not on as high as it shows in the video anymore.. I used a dimmer to make it just a small breeze so it doesn't really move them around nearly as much, just enough to get some air flow)

you can see the tomato plants I am talking about in the shot, they are around the outer edge, and pretty easy to spot from the pepper plants lol

I Started My tomatoes in Fall and havent stoped planting sinse then, and I must say they are doing Great, My oldest tomato planted on September is about to Flower, How you take care of them is how they are going to Do, Take good care of them and they will do great, Dont stress it, Just keep them warm.

I would start over. I think plants started at a more appropriate time will be stronger and more able to withstand wind, sun, and heavy rain.

You can take cuttings of the tomatoes and root them in water, they root easily. Once they root, replant.

One other thing, tomatoes once established, benefit from a cooler growing environment. They'll grower stockier, but not as tall.

neoguy said:

You can take cuttings of the tomatoes and root them in water, they root easily. Once they root, replant.

One other thing, tomatoes once established, benefit from a cooler growing environment. They'll grower stockier, but not as tall.

Click to expand...

hmm good to know about the cooler environment, I knew they liked it a little cooler than pepper plants (around 70-80, instead of 80-85) but didn't know they would go stockier because of it.. that is why I think setting up the mini greenhouse would be good, the basement is around 65-70 degrees and the tent is heated to not drop below 72 or so during the day (when lights are off) and gets up around 80-82ish with the lights on, .. so I think the mini tent would be good for it, and just have the LED which can cover a 3x3' area pretty well...

and hopefully if I get that care package from Xtreme Growers from the FB promotion thing, i will have some rooting hormone or stuff.. (not sure what it actually is) but I will play around with that if I do. would be cool to clone

OROZCONLECHE said:

I Started My tomatoes in Fall and havent stoped planting sinse then, and I must say they are doing Great, My oldest tomato planted on September is about to Flower, How you take care of them is how they are going to Do, Take good care of them and they will do great, Dont stress it, Just keep them warm.

Click to expand...

well thats comforting to know.. I figured they can't be worse than people having superhots all year round.. I know most people winterize their pepper plants by cutting them down, but I also know that there are people that just keep going and growing them (I personally plan on keeping a handful of pepper plants still growing at least until mid winter next year and then I will trim them down just enough so I have room to start my other plants for the following summer)

what size pots do you have them in now?.. do you think 1 gallon containers will be ok until I can stick they outside.. as long as they don't die it would be OK.. because anything is better than the plants they sell at the stores around here

Indiana_Jesse said:

I would start over. I think plants started at a more appropriate time will be stronger and more able to withstand wind, sun, and heavy rain.

Click to expand...

yea I just don't like killing them, but I will definitely start another set of plants in the early spring from seed and using the best ones out of the batch.. and I can always give away the other plants if they get stunted or anything... anything will be much better than last summer.. where it was so cold and rainy most of the spring and summer than we didn't get plants in the ground till mid/late may, and they were tiny store bought kinds and didn't get tomatoes till august or something like that.. where the years before we got them mid summer at least, and stated the seeds late march outside in the greenhouse

if you have the space to keep them alive, i wouldnt worry about it. when it comes time to plant them, bury 70% of the plant.
tomatoes will root from every place that's buried, and you will have an awesome root system. it will be less effected by drought and will be able to eat up lots of food. you will actually come out ahead. bury the plant deep and you'll be fine

keep it green

souf said:

if you have the space to keep them alive, i wouldnt worry about it. when it comes time to plant them, bury 70% of the plant.
tomatoes will root from every place that's buried, and you will have an awesome root system. it will be less effected by drought and will be able to eat up lots of food. you will actually come out ahead. bury the plant deep and you'll be fine

keep it green

Click to expand...

That's easy to say, and that's the last thing I'd do is kill the plant, I'd easily take some of the "suckers" off and use them for clones,
Connecticut's planting zone is Z5b/Z6b. That's almost 3 1/2 months from now to the last threat of a hard frost.
The local grow shop had 2 tomato plants under a 1000w hps, after 2 months it grew through 2 levels of horizonal netting (which was supporting the tomatoes) and the plants were 3 ft. plus. I do understand trench planting, but with an Indeterminate plant over 4 monts old you'll need a ditch not a trench...

Greg

hmm, that is pretty big plant.. and I am hopefully counting on the warm weather this year to move that frost date up a lot, it is suppose to be around mid april I think it says on the chart, but I am thinking that mid/late march will be warm enough to at least stick them outside at least during the day... but actually just thinking about it, if i have enough light inside then.. there really wouldn't be any reason to move them outside until they can go into the soil..


oh well I guess if if they get too big I will just take the cuttings of them and plant them and just see what happens to the large ones.. oh well, I will keep this updated as far as what happens to them.. and as far as putting them into the ground, this year we will finally be able to get a truck load or 2 of manure into the garden (can use my bosses truck, use to use the neighbors but he got a new truck) and a truck load of topsoil for the plants that will go into pots and the rest can just go into the garden.. but even without anything added in, we use mounds, and I can get 2-3ft of topsoil before hitting any sort of clay right now, so hopefully a little bit more once we get some manure and soil in there.. and it is different at different areas in the garden, and that is straight down. so I should be able to get about 2-3ft of the plant (including roots already formed) into the ground.. so really 2ft of the plant.. and the garden isn't huge, and it's only 40 or so holes which I don't mind doing at all.. so that's not too bad.. I just won't be doing this next year haha

My tomatoes are on 1 gallons, I take em out during the day and bring them back in the nights, but today i forgot them outside and when i checked they were perfectly good, not even droopy, but i guess the California weather is a bit warmer than most places out there.

yea that is true lol, although it is 50 outside today, and 54 tomorrow.. but then back down to 40s and some 30s by mid week.. and back up to high 40s low 50s lol.. the weather is really messed up.. but I have the lights to keep them in, so as long as they are ok in 1 gallon pots, then they should be good..

I checked on them just now when I was putting some new pepper seedlings down there, and they looked much better than yesterday from what I could see (lights were off, dark cycle) but I just had watered them yesterday like I mentioned above, so I guess they like it a little more wet than the pepper plants.. which is fine, and good to know.. I will just make sure I get them into pots by the weekend.

also Orozconleche, do you have the same type of soil consistency as the pepper plants, really loose, or is a little denser (just a tiny bit, but not much) soil ok.. because I noticed their roots are really aggressive and punched through those Jiffy Pellets really easily and fast.

When I Had the Jiffys they also poked out quick, so i transplanted them fast without the jiffy on it tho, when those things go dry they get as hard as a rock, I use my own mix of soil, a bit of everything, it drains real good, keeps the soil moist and has lots of fertilizer, slow release tho

ok cool, that sounds pretty much what I have setup for the soil, it has MG soil mixed in there along with other stuff.. but I have the bone meal and blood meal in there also