Tomatoes from seed

 

 
It gets a 4/5 for feeding power. Nice going Tomato!

The post says from seed but the first batch I planted weren't actually from seed (that'll come later), In fact the only reason I planted tomatoes was because my friend had bought about 30 seedlings and had a few left over. So I took them off her hands and quickly planted around 6 of them into various spare containers. So now I was growing cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes.

I also left some tomatoes I bought from a veg van out too long and one went rotten. I thought why not and squiged it (squiging is a real activity!) into some soil unceremoniously. A week later and I was weeding out the things! So that gives me my third variety which is a perfectly round medium sized one I've dubbed farmer's variety.

1 rotten tomato + soil + a week = (farmer's variety)

Cherry and Plum Varieties

Caring for them was pretty easy, they grew in simple compost and all I had to do was keep the soil moist. I planted the seedlings at the end of April. Mid may I had this:

These ones in a deep bucket grew faster then all the others. There are three plants in here 1 plum and 2 cherry. I honestly don't know if it's the depth of the pot, planting them together or the fact they got a little extra sun. Comment if you know!

Here are some other plants at the first of June, also I was seeing a few green tomatoes here and there around the yard, 2 weeks after I was eating red ones. So from seedling to first fruit it took a month and a half. This is with a tiny amount of fertilizer.

All three varieties In their mid life stage

 

By the end of July most had died off (and had given me quite a few salads) The hardiest variety seemed to be the farmer's variety but a week ago it gave up the ghost. That's it on the right there. The stalk is still intact and the tomatoes continue to ripen.

It also has that country feel

By June I had learned that it wasn't the best idea to let the leaves simply droop onto the floor. With a few dried sticks I had left over from a hedge pruning I built a simple support structure. By using support I can manipulate the leaves so that the plants diffuse light to allow for the correct level of shade. It also allows easier pruning access and of course the fruit and leaves aren't on the floor. Also this pot houses the last surviving plants!

That's all there is to growing tomatoes from seedlings. To grow from seed there are a couple of extra easy steps. After I ate my first tomato I harvested seeds from that and a few others and started again (I'm betting it's warm enough in Malta to do this twice in a row or even all year round. I can't wait to find out!)

To grow from seed:

Grab a small pot and fill it with compost then wet it, pop three seeds into the pot and cover with a thin layer of compost/vermiculite/perlite (compost is fine), lightly shower that and prepare more pots in the same way. Keep them moist until they sprout and wait till they get big enough to transplant. If you have too many crowding a single pot then kill off the weaker one(s) or separate them gently and re-pot.

I like to use small hard plastic pots. The trays eventually wear and that's wasting plastic. Not my style.

Just because I want people to know how fanatical I got about the tomato I'll let you know I am currently seeding or growing 6 of each of the following varieties: Cherry, peach, Farmer's and 'Mortgage lifters' (I think it's a beefsteak hybrid).

Also I have one seed I got from someone who said they got it from a whopper. It's germinating in a bright blue pot and rapidly. I'm going to do something on that later.

So how does the tomato plant score when it comes to feeding you?

These scores are about how well each plant will feed a person, that's the plan after all :)

Easy to germinate     
Easy to grow          
Harvest size          
Economy of space      
Easy to harvest seeds  

To explain those scores:

• Most seeds germinate with no special treatment or weather conditions. 
• It's pretty easy and quick to grow but it does need pruning and attention.
• I got about 20 tomatoes per plant and the leaves are nightshade! However you will always get food.
• The beauties will thrive in practically any container you give them and can grow vertically.
• Botanically it's a fruit, so the seeds are available when you eat.

I've left out nutritional value for now because I'm not knowledgeable enough at the moment. I'm concentrating on growing for now. Once I do know enough I'll add that statistic, It's all fine and dandy getting a bumper harvest but if it isn't nourishing then I can't really recommend it (well large quantities of it).

As always feel free to comment and If there's anything I need to add or amend I will :)