For the Love of Tomatoes!

Okay, I said that I was going to include in this blog a blow per blow on the tomatoe crop, so here goes segment number one.

While I was busy on the 21st, working on getting this blog started, the hubs was working on a project of his own.

The first step is getting the seed trays ready. He fills the trays with potting mix, then he has to get it all dampened down.

The next step is poking little holes in each seed compartment so that he can place the seeds.


And, yes, he plants those tiny little seeds one at a time. Each tray holds somewhere around 150 seeds, and this year he is doing two trays. One tray is entirely Goliath tomatoes, and the other tray is a mix of varieties he wants to experiment with.

Last fall, a friend of ours from the farmers market brought him a newspaper page with a bunch of seeds in it. He said that he didn't really know what they were, but that they were a variety that his family in Kentucky has grown for years and saved the seeds from, and he is hoping that the Hubs will be able to get him a few plants for his own garden.

Once the seeds are planted, then the hubs goes about the business of setting up a safe, warm place for them to grow. This involves the sacrificing on one guest bedroom in our house.

In what we call the "pink bedroom" he sets up a table that he has custom designed using the legs off of an old end table we discarded a couple years ago. The legs make for a place for him to hang the lights over the seed trays.

The hubs does not use grow lights, like some would tell you to do. He says they really aren't necessary, as all the little seeds need is plenty of light, about 15 hours a day, moisture, and warmth.

For the first few days of the germination process, they will rest in their beds with an electric heater in the room, and the lights shining on them brightly.

And the end result will hopefully be nearly 300 little tomato plants!

So, we'll now fast forward to one week later. I took the pictures below on the 28th of February. The first of the little seedlings started sprouting after only three days, but the hubs wouldn't let me take a picture then because they were not all up, and he prides himself in 100% germination.

And what about those seeds the friend gave us? Well the hubs said he was concerned about whether or not they would germinate, so he planted three to a seed pod, and guess what, they too had complete germination! So, He'll end up pulling out two from each little cubby on those.