Growing tomato seedlings is a rather complex and time-consuming process. It is necessary not only to prepare seeds, soil, containers but also to correctly calculate the timing of sowing, otherwise, the seedlings will grow on the windowsill and suffer from a lack of nutrition. These worries can be avoided if you sow tomatoes immediately in the soil.
Kyiv. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – April 16, 2021 – Agriculture
It is desirable to grow tomatoes without seedlings in the middle lane in protected soil: greenhouses, hotbeds, warm indoor beds. The ground there warms up much faster, and tomato seedlings are protected from the night cold. The more airtight the greenhouse, the earlier you can sow tomatoes. Of course, everything depends on the weather, but on average – this is the second decade of April.
Soil preparation
Tomato beds need to be prepared in advance. If greenery grows on the site, lay them in the ground with a flat cutter or cultivator. If the greens are not sown, make for every 1 sq. Km. m bucket of compost or humus, because tomatoes need fertile, light soil. Then loosen the bed with a cultivator and water with a solution of biological product Ekomik Urozhayny, which contains beneficial microorganisms that accelerate the decomposition of organic matter and revitalize the soil.
To prepare a solution for soil treatment, add 100 ml of the drug to 10 liters of water at room temperature and mix. Water the soil a week before sowing at the rate of 3 liters of working solution per 1 sq. M. m.
After watering, cover the bed with black agro textile to warm the ground faster. Beneficial soil bacteria and earthworms are activated undercover in moist soil. As a result, the structure of the soil, its air and water permeability will improve.
Sowing tomato seeds
For sowing in the soil, it is desirable to use the seeds of early varieties of tomatoes: Boni-MM, Little Red Riding Hood, Dachnyk, Sanko, Bullfinch, Debut, Labrador, and others. On the eve of sowing, soak the seeds for 30-60 minutes in a solution of Ekomik Yield (5 drops per 200 ml of water) to improve its germination and protect against phytopathogens.
It is not necessary to wash the seeds after soaking: you can start sowing immediately. Make shallow holes in the bed at a distance of 30-40 cm from each other, depending on the characteristics of future bushes. Moisten the soil in the holes and put a few seeds in each of them. Then cover them with a layer of light fertile soil 1 cm thick. It remains to cover the crops with a transparent film or five-liter plastic bottles with a trimmed bottom.
Caring for tomatoes
As soon as the stairs appear, remove the film and install a frame of arches over the bed, and cover the top with spunbond. If the plantings are covered with plastic bottles, in the presence of sunny weather, remove the lids, and at night – screw them again. In the heat, open the windows in the greenhouse, watch the air temperature. As the soil dries, water the sprouts with settled water at room temperature.
After 2-3 weeks, when the real leaves appear on the tomatoes, remove the weaker shoots and leave one strongest plant in each hole. Then fertilize the tomatoes with a complex mineral fertilizer: 1 tbsp. l. nitroammophoska per 10 liters of water, and a month later you can fertilize with superphosphate (1 tbsp. L. of superphosphate per 10 liters of water) or ash infusion (200 g per 10 liters of water). Infrequent fertilization is considered the most effective because water-soluble nutrients are absorbed by plants much faster than when using granular fertilizers.
Alternate top dressing with root and foliar treatments with Ekomik Yield, to increase the resistance of tomatoes to bacterial, fungal, and viral diseases and to accelerate fruit ripening.
Advantages and disadvantages of seedlings method of growing tomatoes
The seedling-free method of growing tomatoes has many advantages: you do not need to take containers with seedlings on the windowsill, illuminate the seedlings, you do not need to dive and dilute the dirt in the house, and then worry about where to place plants after picking and how to create the right temperature. regime.
Tomatoes grown from seeds in the garden are stronger and hardened, they grow faster, get sick less often, and bear fruit longer. Such plants have a more developed root system: the main root of the bushes can germinate to a depth of 1.5 m. This means that these bushes can be rarely watered and less fed. And if the bed is mulched, the care of tomatoes will be minimal.
The only disadvantage of the seedling-free method of growing tomatoes is that the fruits on such bushes ripen a few weeks later than on other plants of the same varieties grown through seedlings and sown a month earlier. But with the right choice of varieties of early ripening, the harvest can be obtained in July-August.
Growing tomatoes without seedlings is an interesting experiment, and you should try to do it with at least a small part of the seeds, for which this season may not have enough space on the windowsill.
Read also: Peat Tablets for Growing Seedlings, Good or Bad
Source: Ukrgate