2013 Tomato Growing

yes - me too, although I remove the leaves if I remember too - the other thing I do if Im potting on to their final home is leave a bit of space at the top of the pot so once they have grown up a bit I can top the compost up & the plant then pushes out more roots from the newly covered stem.

 

They don't look leggy to me ...

That post is about using an especially deep pot, so that you can deliberately pot-on and bury quite a lot of the stem.

Most plants don't like their stems being buried - up to the seed leaves is fine, more than that not. However, Tomatoes are very happy to have their stems buried and will make new roots from the stem. However, you don't have to do this, and it possibly has some drawbacks:

• the plant is potted on very near the bottom of the new pot, so there is very little compost under the roots for it to take advantage of - it will be some time until a rooting system is formed from the stem.
• When you plant out you will need a deep hole to accomodate the deep rootball. If your topsoil is shallow (the soil in my greenhouse is) this may give you some problems.

Upsides:

• Will enable you to plant out "deep" and thus your plant will be "shorter" and, in a greenhouse, it will be longer before it hits the roof and runs out of growing space.
• Either way, you can always plant-deep when you plant it out, you don't have to do that when you pot on.

Should you pot on now?

From the photo I don't think the plant is ready, but the test is to see if the pot is full (but not overcrowded) with roots.

Test 1: Any roots coming out of the bottom of the pot? If so then it is probably ready for potting on, or getting close.

Test 2: Invert the plant, with the stem (i.e. now downwards) between the fingers of one hand. Knock the edge of the pot sharply on the edge of a table, or similar. The plant should drop out of the pot - and be restrained by your hand! Lift the pot off with your other hand, inspect the roots, and then put the pot back on (the plant is still upside down). Once the pot is back on safely you can turn the plant the right way up again - perhaps then just "drop" the pot an inch or two onto the table to resettle everything.

If the roots are well formed then you should plan to pot on. If the whole rootball just falls to bits when you do this then it is far too early to try this and you now have to try to reassemble everything from the various piles of compost on the floor

If you are going to bury them / the stem then I would take them off. Risk that they rot, and introduce disease, if they are buried. Having said that Tomatoes grow very strongly, so the chances of some dead leaves causing side-effects is relatively small IMO.

Personally I would bury them UP TO the first set of True Leaves and not bother to bury them deeper than that [during potting on, by all means bury them deeper when you plant out]

Yeah, I agree. You will have more "energy generation" with more leaves left on the plant, provided they are young and healthy, and as I said earlier I think deep planting takes some time for the stem-roots to form and you have restricted compost under / around the original rootball where the majority of the new root activity will be.

But ... what it really needs is a side-by-side test to prove it one way or the other.

As it happens I do have a stack of those type of deep "Clematis" pots, and some Rose pots [to pot onto thereafter], so I might try it.

 

Thanks for your excellent advice people.

Glad you pointed this out Kristen - I don't have the depth outside or big enough pots to to plant deeper than 8" or so at most, so of course I shouldn't be doing this! Thanks for drawing attention to what should have been obvious to me!

No sign of roots at the bottom yet, and don't really want to risk Test 2 so think I'll give them another week or 2

Forgive my naivety, but the 'first set of True Leaves' - that would be the little fellas on my pic then - i.e the second set of actual leaves? And once the plant is more established and ready for potting on I can take off the lowest set of leaves (be those the first set of true leaves or the next set if it develops more by that time?) and plant it deeper than where those were?

Thanks again for all the help, much appreciated.

 

Yes.

The seed leaves - the first ones to appear after a seed germinates - are typically different in appearance to the ones that appear after that (those being referred to as the "True leaves").

So the second set of leaves to appear is the "first set of True leaves"

(Pedantic point: some plants are Dicotyledons - they produce a pair of seed leaves - that includes Tomatoes; other plants are Monocotyledons - like grass - which produce only a single seed leaf).

Most commonly plants raised from seed are most prone to becoming leggy at the initial, germination, stage. The seed tray might have been in the airing cupboard with no light at the moment that germination occurred :( or was on a windowsill which, whilst being bright to our eyes, was a relatively low light level for plants.

Those things conspire to make seedlings leggy. This can be "fixed" by pricking out up to the seed leaves. Thereafter, as day length increases and it becomes warm enough to put the plants in greenhouse / conservatory, there is usually enough light that subsequent growth is "stocky" rather than "leggy".

If you have to continue to grow your plants on a windowsill, or similar, then the later growth may be leggy too (i.e. somewhat/significantly more elongated than normal) ... not much you can do about that, the plants will be taller and reach the greenhouse roof sooner as a result). Leggy plants are reaching for the light, using energy in the process, and making weaker stems. They may not support their own weight well, and by being "exhausted" may be more prone to disease and have suppressed immune systems. So that tall leggy blonde that you admired in the 6th Form was, in fact, unhealthy and starved of vital sunlight

 

You can if you want to, and IF the plant is a Tomato (some other plants will be happy with this approach, other's won't).

But you don't have to. I don't - I pot-on a bit deeper, according to what the depth of the pot will let me, and I may bury a couple of inches of stem by the time I have potted on to 5", 7" 9" and then 12", but I don't purposely pot-on absolutely as deep as possible, nor have I used special extra-deep Tom pots in the past. (But I would be interested to hear if there is experimental evidence that it makes a significant difference).

I do plant out as deep as I can, because it is clear to see, during the season, the amount of root that Tomato plants make right at the surface, so I want to encourage that.

For outdoor plants deep-planting probably helps with the stability of the plant.

IF YOU HAVE GROWN / BOUGHT "GRAFTED" PLANTS UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DEEP PLANT THEM SUCH THAT THE GRAFT IS BELOW-GROUND.

 

Well, I don't have to, but they seem warm and happy here in the office for now, so I was planning on potting them on one more time once they've outgrown these 3" pots and then planting out somewhere bright and sheltered once they're bigger and stronger. Still seems a bit cool and windy out there for these little chaps to me...

You certainly sound like you know what you're talking about so I think I'll follow your lead and plant on as deep as the first true leaves but no deeper when I'm ready for re-potting.

Always been more a fan of the curvy brunette anyway

 

Ps - would you feeding them anytime soon, or waiting for the first flowers?

 

You can lay toms on their side and cover the stem with compost to gain a significant increase in rootage. The stem will turn upwards (L-shape) but it doesnt affect the stability because the root increase also provides extra anchorage. No need for a deep pot

 

Best Practice is not to feed them until the first flowers "set" (you'll see a tiny little "ball" in the centre of the flower which is the fruit starting to form).

Feeding them before then will encourage more leaf, and delay flowering, or reduce the amount of flowers.

Were you meaning at planting out time Hex?

Apart from reducing the amount of stem is there any advantage to doing this when potting on? i.e. the plant will have the same amount of root, constrained by the size of the pot, so I'm not sure it will increase stability unless the act of being L-shaped perhaps has that benefit too?

 

I checked one of my 1" pot seedlings of Red Robin. No where near full of roots yet and they've been in their cells since 4 April. Seem much slower this year than last year - just gotta be more patient - can't hurry Mother Nature,
Jenny

 

You can with a 400W Metal Halide "Cannabis" lamp

 

I may regret it, but Ive planted the first batch of outdoor plants out as I need the greenhouse space:

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The wall gets the sun all day so it should hold warmth enough to get them thru the nights .. provided we continue to get sun, that is..

Plants are 2x tomarillo, 2x Stupice, 2x Gartenpearl, Ace & Roma VF.

Going to interplant with sunflowers & outdoor cucumbers if I can work out what it what - all the labels are mixed up & everthing looks a little bit like french beans at the moment. I cant have planted that many french beans, surely ?

 

I'm in the process of getting my outdoor ones out too. Always a bit scary.

 

Way too soon for outdoor ones yet, imo. I won't be planting mine out until the first week in June.