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tomatoes
H7
Posts: 15
in Fruit & veg
how long do tomato seeds take to germinate
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how long do tomato seeds take to germinate
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A week, 2 weeks maximum.
Yes, that's about the average given the right sowing conditions. Some will germinate in a couple of days. Older seeds can take up to a month.
I sowed 3 tomato types indoors and just hardening them off in my plastic greenhouse before leaving them outdoors for the summer. However I have noticed tom plants springing up all over my veg plot. I guess they have self-seeded from last year. I am suspecting that the people who owned the house last year had some toms stray over the period of the summer. I am actually happy to see them because it lets me know that end of May is the correct time to put mine outside. Happily mine are a little bigger than the outdoor germinated, but it will be interesting to compare them by the end of the summer.
It's always fun getting "volunteers", finding out what they are. If they're hybrids, you get some interesting variations on the parent variety in the first generation.
Many years ago I learned that Tomato seeds can survive transportation through the human digestion system and find their way, (via the sewerage system) to the local sewage works, where solid matter is extracted before the contaminated liquids are processed.
This solid matter is exttracted and stacked in a mound and left to drain. It was observed that in a couple of weeks there were Tomato plants growing on the surface this mound!
If human waste was distributed on a garden there may well have been Tomato plants germinating and growing there in the same way.?
well there s a thought!!!
I have had problems of tomato blight for the past couple of years and have now lost all my tomato plants again. I planted them in the troughs or plant pots. Kept well watered. Any tips for next year please
Coralie, "blight" has become a generic term for any fungal or bacterial problem. There are actually only two Blights - Early and Late - but there are many more fungal or bacterial diseases, some of which resemble Early Blight in particular.
Can you be more specific about the symptoms - or even post a photo - so we can try to work out what the problem is? And have the plants been indoors or outdoors?
But, in general, unless you spray preventively, all you can do is try to minimise the chance of infection via housekeeping practices. I say minimise because, without preventive spraying, you can't actually stop infection. Fungal spores are invisible to the naked eye, they travel in the air, and they're everywhere. You can't avoid them.
Housekeeping practices include: keeping plants well apart to aid air circulation; judiciously removing foliage to avoid great clumps of leaves to aid air circulation; keeping the foliage as dry as possible because damp leaves are the perfect incubator for the spores. It's also a good idea to remove the lowest branches in order to maintain a gap of at least a foot between the soil and the lowest foliage. Spores can and will fall from the leaves to the soil and can be splashed back up again onto the leaves when watering. The gap helps against this.
When you say well-watered, how often were you watering? Over-watered plants - and over-fertilised plants, for that matter - can be more vulnerable to disease.
Just got back from weekend away and they were brown blotchy stems. I planted them in 12" pots and 2 plants in medium troughs. They were out door so got lots of rain on them. I did check that they were not standing in too much water. They had not flowered when I went away. Unfortuately I have just cut them up and put them in our council garden recycle bin as I did not want to put them in my compost. So I have no photo
Ah, shame there's no evidence. Was there any sign of a problem on the leaves? Most diseases manifest first on the leaves.