Grow Your Own Delicious Tomatoes

We started our grow kits last Sunday in preparation of our Spring and Summer garden. It was such a nice afternoon activity for the family and we are all looking forward to our times together in the garden this Spring & Summer. 

For those of you who have purchased our grow kits, I thought I'd put this little post together with step by step directions and progress on our little seedlings- we are already seeing them begin to sprout!

Grow Your Own Delicious Tomatoes:

You'll Need:

• Kit components: seeds, coir pot, soil wafer, plant marker, biodegradable germination bag & t-shirt to get messy in!
  
• Additional items: container to mix soil with water, Measuring cup (to measure water), rubber band, paper towels, Sink
  

Directions:

DAY 1

Arrange components on your kitchen counter

Fill measuring cup with 2 1/2 cups water & add soil wafer to container. Gradually add water to container with wafer and mix. Note the mixture will be almost like soup if you add all 2 1/2 cups of water. This will allow you to easily pour the mixture to your pot & the mixture to be nice & moist to more effectively  sprout your seeds. 

Place your pot in your kitchen sink. Pour mixture into pot. (NOTE: Excess water will pass through coir pot - so you must do this in sink or outside)

Place several paper towels or old kitchen towel on counter. Take coir pot from sink and place on towel in preparation to add your seeds!

Place tomato seeds on soil. Next, press in about 1/4" - 1/2" into soil and 1/2" apart. Then, cover with soil from each side of where you pressed the tomato seed. 

Place plant marker in pot. Place coir pot in germination bag and then fasten with rubber band.

Place in sunny spot in doors. Once the plant reaches 2" tall, open germination bag, fold down & keep soil moist. After approximately, 6 weeks, and plant is 5-10" tall, remove germination bag & plant outside in a planter or ground. DO NOT REMOVE FROM BIODEGRADABLE coir pot!

Tomato Progress

DAY 5

DAY 8

DAY 10: It's time to open the germination bag - these little sprouts are pushing well over 2" tall at this point!!! Remember to keep soil moist but not soaked.

DAY 26: Our tomatoes have beautiful leaves and are ready to be transplanted to individual pots so they have room to grow before they can travel outside. To "prick out": lift seedlings from below, holding each one gently by their baby cotyledon leaves and scooping up entire soil ball from below. We find an old fork works well for this. If roots have grown together into a clump, gently tease seedlings apart, holding by baby cotyledon leaves.The tomatoes need to be in consistent 65-70 degrees and sun to remain healthy. Once the temperatures are consistently at 55 degrees or higher each night, you can transplant your tomatoes outdoors.