Time to Seed Your Tomatoes

Ladies, gentlemen, friends, countrymen… it’s time to start seeding your tomatoes if you want to have some juicy homegrown tomatoes come summer. I used to not love tomatoes, but ever since eating them garden fresh, I cannot wait for them to be in season again. Put a little salt and olive oil on a tomato slice… mm. I’m jazzed about it.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SEED SOMETHING?

So first question, what does seeding mean? Can’t I just put a seed in the ground and it’ll grow? Wellll, in theory yesss.. but tomatoes (and alot of other produce + flowers) need to be seeded in trays or little pots inside first, or a greenhouse, before being put in the ground outside.

Tomatoes like the same temperatures as humans, and they don’t like freezes (same). We start them early inside so that we can get a jumpstart on their growth so that when it is warm enough outside, we’ll have nice, big healthy transplants to put in the ground. And that way, they’ll start flowering and setting fruit before it gets too hot for the flowers to pollinate.

Got it?

GREAT, SO HOW DO I DO THAT?

Choose what you want to start them in.
If you want a bunch of tomato plants, we recommend buying some plug trays so that you can start a bunch at once. Here’s a link to a size that would be great for that!
If you only want a couple of tomato plants (it' will still give you lots of tomatoes), you may want to use little pots. You can even use a plastic cup, just make sure it has a whole in the bottom of it so that it can drain. There are also great seed starting kits available at your local hardware store. Here’s a great kit to try!
Once you have your container, fill the pot with a soilless seed starting mix.
We recommend Jiffy Organic Seed Starting mix. It comes in smaller quantities and you can get it on Amazon. Just be sure you don’t use dirt from your backyard, you need something meant for seed starting.
Get some seeds and put a couple of seeds in each cell.
Here are a couple websites where you can order some seeds:
Press the seeds about a quarter inch deep into the cell and cover with soil.
Place those babies under a shop light if you have one or on a sunny windowsill. And keep them moist!
They’ll germinate in about 7-10 days if you keep them around 70 degrees. That means, you’ll see little sprouts coming up in a little over a week. *happy dance*
Once the plant has two sets of true leaves and holds together in the cell, you can upgrade them to a 4” pot!
Gage Durapot Square Plastic Nursery Pots, 4" - Qty. 50
After the last possible frost, you can plant them outside! We’ll provide more tips as we get to these stages, so stay tuned! For now, get those seeds started!
Heres a link to the average last frost date in different parts of Texas1
https://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-texas-last-frost-date-map.php