When to Transplant Tomato Seedlings

today is all about transplanting tomato seedlings when do we transplant tomato seedlings what container should we use to transplant them into and exactly how to transplant the tomato seedlings all of the seedlings we're going to transplant today are seedlings that we planted in the video i put out two weeks ago how to plant tomato seeds and in that video i showed how i plant two seeds per cell in a six cell seed tray like this so when we get to the section on how to transplant these tomato seeds into another container i'm going to show you exactly how we can split these up to get two plants per single cell so we'll get 12 transplants out of this single six cell tray i was experimenting with some new led seed starting lights and although the growth has been fantastic very strong root structure very full foliage they did get a little bit taller than i normally like but that's not a problem and i'll show you exactly why when we go to transplant these tomato seedlings let's talk about when we transplant our tomato seedlings i transplant my tomato seedlings twice during the life of the plant the first time i transplant my tomato seedlings is to take them from a six cell seed starting tray like this into a larger container like this the second time i transplant my tomato seedlings is to take them from this container when they're ready to go directly into the garden and i plant directly into my garden beds so when do we transplant from our six cell seed tray into this size container you can transplant your tomato seedlings as early as when the first set of true leaves appear on the plant now the first set of true leaves are the second set of leaves that will appear on the plant the first set of leaves that appear on the plant are called cotyledons those leaves are used to feed the plant until it has its first set of true leaves and it's able to utilize photosynthesis and nutrients in the soil for food the second rule i use for transplanting or when to transplant my tomato seedlings is we want to bury as much of the tomato plant as we can up to that first set of true leaves within the limitations of the container that we are transplanting into and we'll go over that when we transplant these seedlings into this size container but as a general rule after your seeds germinate anywhere from one to three weeks depending on the light intensity you're using to grow these seedlings that's when you'll transplant them from the six cell seed starting tray into the larger container what container to transplant your tomato seedlings into i exclusively use now these three inch square nursery pots to transplant into i do this for two reasons the first is that i can take the plants in these three inch square nursery pots to about six to eight weeks old like the one i have here it's perfect it's ready to go outside into my garden the root mass if we take a look at that the root mass is not yet winding around the soil mass so this is not going to be root bound when we put it and plant it into our our final home in the garden um it'll grow very very well the other reason i like these three inch square nursery pots is they fit perfectly into my 10 by 20 inch seed starting tray so i don't need another bottom container these i can just line up three across by six across in this container how to transplant our tomato seedlings as as always i use regular organic potting soil to transplant my tomato seedlings into i make sure the soil is well moistened never transplant into dry soil and then try to water it in so make sure you have well moistened potting soil i fill up my potting soil into my container and i just tap it down i don't push it down in and firm it down in because it will get compacted on the bottom and be very difficult to get this out of the get your plant out of the out of the container the next thing i do is i make an indention with a two inch dowel rod and the depth of the indention i make in my container is really dependent on how tall my seedling is so what i want to do is i want to leave about 25 to 30 percent of the soil undisturbed on the bottom so that this tomato seedling can grow out down below but i want to bury the rest of the tomato seedling down into the soil stem and all and the reason for that is on tomato seedlings if we look at the stem of a tomato seedling you'll see little hairs growing out all around this stem those little hairs if buried under the level of your soil will become roots will become additional root mass for your plant your plant will be able to take out more nutrients and it will grow stronger and healthier so with tomato plants we want to transplant them as deep as we can but we want to leave 25 percent of that soil on the bottom undisturbed so those roots that are existing on the seedling can grow down a little bit before they hit the bottom of your container this can see our seedlings look very very healthy they're not yet root bound too bad they look very good and what we're going to do because we have two plants per seed cell we're going to split these right down the middle just like this and that's leaving us with two tomato plants and we're going to plant both of these let me set one aside here the other one here now i am going to just put this in deep enough so that i leave about 25 to 30 percent on the bottom take my tomato seedling and i drop it right in that hole and i just fill in right around it then i fill in my container all the way around the seedling all the way up to the top of this container i like to fill it up to the top of the container i like to be able to make sure that when i'm growing inside and i have my fan on and i'm blowing that air flow across these seedlings i'm going to make sure that there's no soil down below the level of the top of that container that is not going to hit with some of that airflow let's pat it in gently and there we have it we were able to bury about half of that stem and still leave 30 um of the bottom of this container free for the existing roots to continue to expand down in another three to four weeks these are going to look exactly like this very simple process very easy to do there's nothing to it you don't have to be too concerned when you're splitting these apart that you're going to damage the roots be gentle but don't be afraid of it there your tomato plants are going to be just fine

Channel: Riley's Garden

Views: 234,644

Keywords: when to transplant tomato seedlings, how to transplant tomato seedlings, container for transplanting tomato seedlings

Id: A-EddWTTmuQ

Length: 8min 14sec (494 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 01 2021