Tomato Seed Germination!

The last time we discussed planting the Spring 2013 tomato crop was about a week ago.  On January 1st, I always start my tomatoes from seed.  So on January 1st, this was where we left off - seven different varieties of heirloom tomato seeds, planted, watered, covered in plastic wrap and placed on top of the stand-up freezer (our chicken freezer) in the laundry room awaiting germination.


Waiting for sprouts - tick tock

The seed packets say that with favorable conditions (warm, moist soil) tomatoes will germinate in 5 - 10 days.  Well, I planted them at noon on January 1st.  When I got home from church on January 6th and checked them they had sprouted!  Right on time!!  In fact, you can see the sprout pushing up against the plastic wrap.  Time to pull that off.

Leaping from the soil

Now that I've removed the wrap, you can see the tomato sprouts better.  They look healthy and vibrant.


Tomato Sprouts

Here is a side view where you can see them peeking up out of the tray.


Ready, Set, Grow!

I pulled the plastic wrap off of the tray of various pepper and eggplant seeds that I also planted on New Year's Day, but nothing is happening yet.  They both take a lot longer than tomatoes to germinate.  I'll water them and we'll keep watching.


No peppers or eggplant breaking the soil yet

To maintain soil moisture, on those containers where the tomatoes haven't sprouted much, I'll leave the plastic wrap on until they're pushing on the plastic.  This saves me from having to water them as much.

Got it covered

They are growing quickly, in another day I was able to remove all the plastic.

And by tonight, those little boogers are stretching out.  You can see the ones closest to you are reaching toward the sunlight in the window.  Tomorrow I plan to reposition them on a shelf in the laundry room with a grow lamp over them.  You've got to be careful as they will continue to grow to the sun and get tall and "leggy".  When they're like that they are weak and fall over.  When you finally plant them in the soil in the garden, you can bury them almost up to their first leaves in the soil, which makes them stronger.


They are taking off!

The leaves you see above aren't the true leaves.  They are called cotyledons.  They don't get their first true leaves until a little later.  When I see those first true leaves, that lets me know it is time to transplant the two or three little tomato plants growing in one section of each container into their own cup.

So being the plant nerd that I am, I counted the baby tomato plants and count 78 plants!  Now realistically, I won't get all those to maturity.  Some will die and some I'll give away, but that is a nice starting point and if the Good Lord is willing, we'll have plenty tomatoes for cooking, canning, and eating, making me think of the verse below:

"Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."  Mark 4:8