It's Tomato Sprout Time!

From Seed To Seedling, A Pictorial Journey In The Damp Paper Towel Seed Sprouting Arts

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Yesterday it was Easter Sunday. It was also April Fool's Day. Nature didn't disappoint, check out our "spring" weather:

In all honesty, it is completely normal to get a random smattering of snow in April, sometimes in May, and occasionally in June in North Idaho. I like to call it a challenge accepted sort of climate, and don't let the fickleness of our weather patterns deter me from growing what sort of veg that I enjoy noshing on.

So, sometime last week, I thought I better get my tomato plants working, as I tend to put them out into the hoop house every year around May first. Last year I wrote an entire post about how I start my tomato and pepper seeds by sprouting them in damp paper towels, but I thought a bit of a refresher would be nice for all of my newer followers to behold.

To get this party cracking, I started off with some seeds. I save most of my own tomato seeds from year to year, but I also like to try out a few new varieties every year as well. It's fun to see what type of cultivar can make it through our weather gauntlet and produce! Ten Fingers of Naples and Soldaki are two heirloom tomato varieties that I am especially excited about this year, for the Roma-like Naples tomatoes are supposed to yield on par with your neighbor's zucchini plant and Soldaki is Polish, supposedly reliable, and is supposed to be a great slicer. We shall see if these toms uphold their accolades!

I then take a perfectly good paper towel, dampen it with lukewarm water, fold it in half, and place however many seeds I wish to germinate on one half of the fold. "Why bother with all of this paper towel nonsense?" you might be musing at this juncture. Well, when it comes to tomatoes and peppers, I like to know exactly how many plants I am going to get. Both tomatoes and peppers require high germination temperatures, and I have found with my damp paper towel seed starting method that I get excellent germination rates without subsequently high power bills, for I just plunk my sprouting seeds on top of my refrigerator or next to my wood stove.

Each folded seed germination paper towel bed is placed a top some dampened, crinkled paper towels in a pie plate, and covered loosely with plastic wrap. Note my super scientific labeling:

Usually a little over a week later, or when I check my sprouts in I actually remembered they were on top of the fridge panic, I transplant the little sprouts into some soil-less potting mix.

It is important to carefully remove the little sproutlings from the paper towels. If you are not plant surgeon-like in your root removal, you will leave the baby plant's roots embedded in the paper towel. This is not conducive to your goal of tomato plant production. If you are not confident in your sprout removal skills, just tear the paper towel around the sprout's root and plant the sprout, roots, and paper towel all together in your soil-less mix. If anything, that residual bit of paper towel will help keep the sprout moist while it is rooting.

Now, a pencil is a good tool to have during any sprout transplanting operation, and if the only pencil you can find is one of your daughter's colored pencils, go with that. Poke a shallow hole in your planting medium the depth of your sproutling's roots and using the pencil, carefully poke your sprout's roots gently down into the soil-less depression.

Next, you need to press the soil around the sprout down a bit to secure things, think of it as a dirt corset.

And moisturize the area. Note my super fancy 88 cent spray bottle from a shall not be named big box store. It's really easy to drown your sprouts with too much water, so I recommend spray bottles for H2O application, especially in the beginning.

Next: labeling! This step is super important if you want to know what variety you are eating, save the seeds, or look somewhat informed when your neighbor asks you, "What type of tomato is that right there?" As I tend to be a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to gardening things, I have a bunch of plastic cutlery that I save every year for the labeling of the plants purpose. Give me a bunch of plastic knives and a black Sharpie and I could catalog a botanical garden. Well, maybe a small one, I tend to have chores to do and stuff.

After I finished transplanting the sprouts, I placed them onto my homemade from scrounged materials plant shelf. Most grow shelves cost as much as a couple of tons of animal hay, and we built ours for about twenty bucks, which was the cost of the darn daylight spectrum plant light bulbs. It's really easy to come by four foot light fixtures, plastic shelves, and extension cords around my place.

Finally, I tend to spray down my little sproutlings two or three times a day with the spray bottle. They are pretty tough, but the first couple of days I try to keep them well hydrated. They have light on them for about twelve hours a day, and the room that they live in stays about 65-70 degrees Fahrenheit. The sprouts also get to live in a terror free from cat zone. I try to keep the stress that they go through to a minimum, cause I care. In a couple of weeks or so, I will do an update post about fertilizing, potting on, and whatever other plant hoops that I jump through as a vegetation parent!

Hope you are all enjoying a fantastic and snow-free Monday!

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And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's sardonic witted and soil-covered iPhone.

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