subject: How To Successfully Grow Your Tomatoes Indoors [print this page] How To Successfully Grow Your Tomatoes Indoors
Tomato gardening is a refreshing way of spending your leisure time. The benefits are numerous in that you have beautiful plants gracing your garden, patio, deck or yard, you have an activity that you enjoy indulging in and most important you harvest fresh juicy tomatoes for yourself and family.
When choosing the type of tomato you want to plant, emphasis should be laid on what you aim to achieve from the fruit, that is, the end result. You could need tomatoes that produce the best sauces and pastes or those less prone to cracks.
When first trying tomato gardening, the most basic step is to find out how to set up a high quality mixture of soil and compost for starting the process. Everyone's mixture differs, but the point is to identify what works for you.
Others may mix compost with sphagnum peat while others mix regular soil with about 10% worm castings.
Once you have blended the mixture thoroughly add water so that it is moist and damp.
Growing anything from seeds is usually a tall order for anyone so when you deal with tomato seeds you should exercise meticulousness. It doesn't matter whether you want to plant indoors or outdoors, the preparation at the seed stage is usually same for all.
Place the mixture of soil and compost inside a tray after which you insert the seeds about a third of an inch deep. A single hole should contain about eight seeds after which you cover the tray to contain the moisture.
The seeds begin to germinate in temperatures of around eighty degrees, and after about tens days they emerge. Once they sprout, take off the covering then ensure you continue with the watering regimen and expose them to lighting almost the whole day.
This could be taken care of by purchasing a normal bulb and directing the light on the seedlings.
As soon as they reach a height of nearly two inches, delicately transplant them into bigger containers of approximately six inches.
Maintain the plants under this artificial lighting for up to twenty four hours daily as they constantly need light in order to grow. The average temperature for the plants is around seventy five degrees. When the plants now reach a height of twelve inches, they can now be transplanted to larger vessels and six weeks from this point they should just be starting to fruit.
Plants that flower usually require a strong source of light so that they may be able to produce healthy fruit. You should put lime in the mixture of soil so as to stop the plant from developing blossom end rot diseases. The suckers that develop between the branches should be pruned so that the food they use up can be absorbed by more the deserving fruits.
If you stick to this method of planting I can assure you that you will be enjoying your very own big, fresh, juicy, organic tomatoes in no time.
