Planting Tomato Seedlings And Caring For Them

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Hardening tomato seedlings

Before planting tomato seedlings both in open and closed ground, it must be hardened. Pampered plants are not able to form an early harvest in conditions of sharp changes in day and night temperatures.

The last 7-10 days before planting it should be watered minimally, since watering leads to greater tenderness of the tissues. It is necessary to gradually accustom her to the sun, wind and low night temperatures, otherwise the first thing that happens to her - the seedlings "burn" in the sun, and may even die. The greatest effect of adaptation to low temperatures is obtained if night temperatures are lowered to 8-12 ° C a week before disembarkation.

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Planting time of tomato seedlings

It is very important to correctly determine the time of planting tomato seedlings in the ground. It is known that not planted plants on time sharply reduce the yield. It is customary to plant seedlings in open ground at the end of night frosts - this is in our region on June 10, or even later. However, June frosts occur in our region 2-3 times a decade. And planting at such a late date means losing the harvest. Therefore, to get an early harvest, you can take a chance and plant part of the seedlings on May 20-25, leave the rest in case of death for re-planting.

If you are constantly in the country, then you can plant all the seedlings at once, and in case of frost, simply cover it. There is a popular way to determine the timing of planting seedlings in open ground or under temporary film shelters - this is when the buds begin to bloom on fruit trees. True, in our area, trees can be wrong.

Better still, when planting seedlings, focus on temperature. So, at 10 ° C, the tomato does not grow, which means that the seedlings will not take root. When frozen at -3 ° C, the plants are severely damaged, at -4 ° C, the seedlings completely die. Some tomato varieties can withstand frosts down to -2 ° C, but then yield a low-quality crop. Plants, after a prolonged depression from freezing, begin to grow, but lag far behind with flowering and form fruits when the season is over.

Frosts down to -1 ° C may not externally damage the plants, but they delay the onset of fruit formation by 10-15 days. Moreover, the yield drops by 70-75% compared to plants that have not been frozen. Consequently, the planted seedlings should not fall even under a slight frost.

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Planting seedlings in the early stages is dangerous not only because of frost, but also because of the low temperature of the soil. A sign of hypothermia in plants is a purple tint of the stems.

Such tomatoes are far behind in growth. For example, scientists give the following results: when planting seedlings, when the soil temperature was 10-15 ° C, 132 grams of fruits were obtained from a plant of the Gruntovy Gribovsky variety, of which not a single ripe one. At a soil temperature of 15-20 ° C, 379 grams of fruits were already obtained, of which 318 were fully ripe on the bush.

Impressive results. Moreover, it was found that with a lack of heat, stems, leaves, roots grow, but tomatoes do not bloom, do not set fruits. Therefore, there is no need to rush to planting seedlings in the ground or in a greenhouse, just as it is impossible to be late. After all, the most useful and tasty fruits are those that ripened on the plant, and not plucked in the room.

Therefore, you need to try to pre-insulate the greenhouse and garden beds in the open field, covering them with a film.

Seedlings are usually planted in a greenhouse two weeks earlier than in open ground. In case of freezing, it is covered inside the greenhouse with additional film or covering material - now the gardeners have such an excellent help.

If you have resorted to using biofuels, then the seedlings can be planted even earlier, according to the soil temperature at the root depth, which must be measured before planting. It should be above 10 ° C.

Methods for planting tomato seedlings

When planting seedlings, one should not forget that tomato is one of the most light-loving plants, so one of the main rules must be followed - not to thicken the planting. So, on a ridge 90-100 cm wide, it is better to plant plants in one row with a distance of at least 45 cm between them. With denser plantings, it will not be possible to grow large fruits.

It is necessary to plant tomato seedlings in such a way that the root system is in the ground no deeper than 20 cm. If the seedlings are strong and squat, then they are planted vertically. If it is elongated, ankle, then on the eve of disembarkation it will be necessary to cut off all excess leaves so that the wounds dry out, and plant it in trenches in a reclining position. At the same time, the crown with leaves should look south so that the stem, protected by the leaves, does not get sunburn.

The stem without leaves will be covered with earth, and in the future new roots will grow from it. For each plant, a hole or trench is dug, which must be quickly filled with warm water, into which the root system of the plant is lowered. Fall asleep with earth. That's all - the tomato is planted.

It is better to plant tomatoes not at soil level, but on elevated ridges, let them be at least 15-20 cm higher than it to improve the air regime of the soil. If the weather is hot and sunny, the plants can be covered with newspaper for several days until they take root. Then the newspapers must be gradually removed, first at night, and then during the day. It is better not to water the tomatoes for the first 10-15 days after planting, so that the roots that form in the plant grow in depth, and not at the surface.

Plant care

The gardener who thinks that a new variety or hybrid will give him a high yield is mistaken without any trouble on his part, the gardener. You still have to work hard.

Watering tomatoes

After 10-14 days, when the tomatoes take root (the leaves on the crown turn dark green, new leaves begin to appear), the plants are watered for the first time. After watering, it is imperative to loosen the soil around them. In the future, it is necessary to water as little as possible, until the fruits begin to form. Frequent watering compacts the soil, worsens its air regime, which has a bad effect on the growth of the root system. There is an important rule here: water only with warm water. Watering in open ground is less frequent than in greenhouses.

Top dressing of tomatoes

When feeding tomatoes, you need to learn an important principle: increased doses of nitrogen lead to fattening of plants, the fruits are tasteless, they can be cracked, ugly. Nitrogen fertilizers should only be added during poor growth at the beginning of the growing season.

It is necessary to feed tomatoes with mullein or bird droppings no more than 2-3 times per summer. Never put urea in the ground or feed it. Only with a special need to do foliar feeding on the leaves - 1 tbsp. spoon on a bucket of water - usually in early June, at the beginning of the rapid development of plants.

The first feeding of plants is given when ovaries are formed on the first inflorescence. They are fed with phosphorus-potassium fertilizers - superphosphate 20-25 g and potassium sulfate - 15-20 g per square meter of the garden. With mass fruiting, in order to more intensively pouring fruits, it is useful to feed the plants with ammonium nitrate - 15-20 g - and potassium sulfate 20-35 g per square meter.

In the future, it is useful to feed tomatoes twice a month, alternating complex mineral fertilizers, the dose of which is increased to 50-70 g per 10 liters of water, and ash. The dressings should contain trace elements that ash will provide. From the second decade of July, feeding and watering should be stopped so as not to provoke an increase in leaf mass, in which the ripening of fruits is delayed. Mass ripening of tomatoes works best on lean rather than oily soil

Formation

In the Leningrad Region, almost all tomato plants need to be pinned, otherwise the crop will not have time to ripen. Stepchildren should be removed without waiting for them to grow more than 4-5 cm. At this time, they break out easily without leaving a large wound, and the wounds quickly heal. Removing longer stepchildren is less useful, because these stepchildren have already managed to draw strength from the mother plant. Leaving hemp with stepsons is also useless, because a new stepson may appear near the hemp with the same success as without hemp.

By pinching, plants can be formed into one stem or two. It is not recommended to form three stems with us, because some of the fruits on such a plant will not only not ripen, but will not even reach normal size. The fewer stems on a plant, the earlier the fruits will ripen on it.

When formed into two stems, a lateral shoot is left under the first brush as the second stem, all the rest are subsequently removed. When growing indeterminate plants, and determinant ones, too, another technique is used - pinching the top of the main stem. The purpose of this technique is to stop the growth of the main stem in order to accelerate fruit ripening. This technique is best done in early August. At the same time, 2 - 3 leaves should be left above the uppermost flower brush to feed the fruits in this brush.

At the same time, you need to cut off all the buds and flowers that did not have time to set fruit. With such techniques, there will be no small green fruits on the bush at the time of harvest, all the tomatoes will grow to the size inherent in this variety. And the number of brushes on the bush - as much as possible, as much as possible Not necessarily 8 brushes, maybe 5-6, but full-fledged. On plants outdoors, I usually cut all the buds in inflorescences in the first decade of July. This helps the remaining fruit grow to its normal size. Let them be fewer in number, but they will be larger.

Removing leaves is a technique that accelerates the ripening of fruits. Here you cannot get carried away by picking off all the leaves in a row, because they provide food for the fruits. During the period of fruit growth, only diseased and yellow leaves should be removed. And only when the fruits on the first lower brush are completely poured, the leaves under it can be removed, and not all at once, but on a leaf every 3-4 days, so that the plant gradually gets used to the changes. Then do the same with the leaves under the rest of the brushes as they pour. Very large, powerful leaves can be shortened by a third or half their length if they shade the fruit or nearby bushes.

About tomato flowers

Tomato inflorescences - flower and fruit - are of three types: simple, complex and intermediate. The flowers are bisexual, so they self-pollinate. For more reliable pollination, the plants are usually shaken and aired more in the greenhouse. The flower remains open for 2-3 days. Flowering starts from the base of the brush. Complex brushes contain a lot of flowers, some of them are very late in flowering compared to the bulk of flowers in this brush. I remove such lagging flowers.

Often the flowers of modern hybrids are an inflorescence of several accrete simple flowers. Some of them are especially large and complex. This is usually the first flower in the cluster. Such flowers must also be removed, because they do not form normal fruits. If the weather is cloudy during flowering, the fruit usually does not set well, because the pollen becomes heavy and sticky. To improve fruit set, plants are sprayed with a 0.02% boric acid solution (2 g per 10 l of water).

If the weather does not want to improve, it is necessary to repeat the spraying after 2-3 days. You can use the drug "Ovary" - according to the instructions. If, on the contrary, the weather is hot, dry, the pollen caught on the flower pistil may not germinate. Therefore, after shaking the plants, you need to water the soil under them a little to increase the humidity in the greenhouse. In the greenhouse, a thermometer must necessarily hang at a level of about 1 m from the ground in order to monitor the temperature using it. If it turns out to be above 32 ° C, then it makes the pollen sterile. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures to reduce the temperature: airing, shading, etc.

Prevention of tomato diseases

The most dangerous and constantly occurring disease of tomatoes is late blight. There are currently no varieties completely resistant to late blight. There are varieties that suffer from late blight to a greater or lesser extent. The rest is advertising. Therefore, the best remedy for this disease is prevention, which will reduce the risk of disease. Phytophthora appears in wet and cold weather. This usually happens in late July and early August. The first signal for its march is the appearance of phytophthora on potato bushes, and not necessarily in your garden, but more often on the surrounding large potato fields.

Here you need to immediately take action: to protect your potato plantation, and greenhouses need to be closed in the daytime, during windy weather, and not ventilated. Let the greenhouse be very hot during the day. Indeed, in August, when all the fruits in the greenhouse have set, the heat is even useful for them for ripening. Let us recall the heat in which tomatoes grow in the south of the country. So many of our gardeners use this technique with success. And it is better to ventilate in the early morning, while the dew lies on the grass, and phytophthora does not walk with air currents. From the end of July, you need to start every 5-7 days of spraying plants with copper-containing preparations: for example, a 1% solution of Bordeaux mixture or copper sulfate (10 g per liter of water) or oxychom and other preparations.

It is necessary to carefully cut off the slices of the first diseased leaves, burn them. There is information from gardeners that this technique helps: in the last decade of July, a copper wire 3-4 cm long with a surface cleaned of oxides and with a pointed end must be pierced through the plant stem at a height of 20 cm from the soil surface (this figure is different for different gardeners) … With the second wire, pierce the same stem 3-4 cm higher at a right angle to the first. Leave them until the end of the growing season. The wires are practically dissolved by the plant sap. Phytophthora on such plants seems to be observed much less. For other specific diseases, tomato disease specialists should be consulted.