Growing Tomatoes - My Gardening Report

Today I'd like to share with you another gardening report. It will be about tomatoes and some new things we decided to use this year.

This year we decided to use these little plastic trays to plant seeds. You can plant one single seed in each of these holes.

The advantage of using these is that each seedling is growing separately, roots are not affected during transplant. Some seeds are so small you can hardly pick one, that's why you can see two in some compartments but that's totally ok.

After some time they need to be repotted, transplanted to a bigger pot with more soil, as the roots are going to take up all the space they have and there's no way the seedlings can grow healthy.

These are bigger plastic pots. Fill half of each pot with soil, take out the seedlings with the soil all together, place it into the new pot, gently cover with soil, add a little water and the seedlings are all happy.

These were taken out to garden during the day to get used to the sunlight and taken back to the shed during the night, as nights were still cold last week. This must be done if you don't want to burn them when planting them outside. It's a risky move, as you have to know when to start and do it every day till you're sure they won't get damaged outside. We usually start with letting them outside for a few hours and then gradually increasing the time till it's safe.

This is the foil we are going to use this year. It serves to protect the soil, weed is not going to grow as there's no space for that. The foil is permeable and prevents evaporation to some extent.

Holes are cut out where the seedlings are going to be planted.

There are special nails you have to use in order to secure the foil, you place them two meters away from each other.

There are these plastic screws that need to be used between the nails and in the middle of the foil.

All set, all you have to do is cover the sides with soil.

Now comes the fun part, planting the tomato seedlings.

There's a special tool that you can use to make a hole in the soil, exactly the size of the seedling pot size in diameter. This is helpful as you don't damage the roots.

You push the tool into the soil, take it out and you have the hole.

Next, you take out the seedling, gently, so you don't damage the roots.

Place the seedling and soil into the hole. As you can see, the soil is white in some places. Those are roots already.

It's very important not to press down the seedling. Applying pressure can damage the roots.

Cover with a small amount of soil, water it and it's done.

We have six or seven types of tomatoes this year. Some are growing like a bush and those often end up on the ground. In case of too much rain, the fruits start to rot. this foil is doing to prevent rotting. The other advantage is, it prevents weed to grow.

Having your own homegrown, healthy fruits and vegetables is the best thing in the world.