Starting My Tomato Plants

Hello, steemians and garden lovers!

I like to start my tomato plants from seeds in the spring instead of buying plants. It's hard to find the varieties of tomato plants that I like to grow, and it's less expensive to get your plants from seeds. There are 2 types of tomatoes that I like to grow every year, the Amish Paste tomato and the Black Krim tomato. This year, I am also growing the Better Boy hybrid, the Big Mama hybrid paste tomato, the Amana Orange tomato, and the Blue Beech paste tomato. I like to start the past tomato plants first, because I grow them in my greenhouse. I can plant tomato plants in the greenhouse in May, and I have to wait until the end of May or beginning of June to plant tomato plants in the garden.

I start the tomato seeds in the house in the spring. I have a plant starter heat mat that I use to warm the starting pots so the seeds will germinate faster.

The seed starter tray fits on top of the heat mat.

I fill all the little starter pots with seed starter potting soil. I do that in the greenhouse so I won't make a mess in the house.

I bring the starter tray into the house and plant the seeds, 1 seed to each pot. Then I put the clear cover on the tray to hold in the moisture. I planted 6 each of 3 different types of tomato.

Some of the seeds came up faster than others, and a couple of the seeds didn't come up at all. I had to replant those. I took the plants out of the tray and put them under a plant light to grow.

Once the plants got big enough, I started taking them out to my greenhouse during the day to sit in the sun.
They grow fairly fast when they're small.

Once these plants didn't need the heat mat, I started a second batch of seeds for the other 3 types of tomato plant that I want. Here's the first batch of plants, continuing to grow.

Here's the second batch of tomato plants. They're still fairly small, but they're growing. I didn't have enough seeds from 1 package to grow a full tray of plants.

I'll keep the plants in the greenhouse until it's time to plant them in the garden. They're protected from the cold nights by the greenhouse so I don't have to keep them in the house at night now. When the paste tomato plants are large enough I'll plant them in the big greenhouse pots where they'll stay for the summer. The rest will go outside in the garden at the beginning of June.

That's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!