Growing some early tomatoes 2020

[Sylvan]

I sowed some Scotland Yellow at the beginning of January and put them in my new propagator. When none had germinated by the beginning of February I sowed the rest of them.
Still nothing, and I have none left

[veggiechicken]

How old were they, Sylvan?

[Hatgirl]

I had some low germination rates with some seeds. They were pretty old. So for the next round I put a smidge of liquid fertiliser in water and soaked the seeds for 24hours before sowing them. Got full germination!

[Sylvan]

They were at least 5 years old and had been in a steel shipping container for a couple of years while we didn't have a house or garden so they were probably baked to death.

Soaking in liquid seaweed sounds like a good idea. I'll try it with some of my other old seeds.

I have some cuttings that I overwintered (Glacier, Black Opal, and Golden something - I refuse to go into the other room to look - it's only about 7 degrees in there! )
Does that count as early?

[veggiechicken]

Not sure whether its early or late!!
Good going to overwinter them - I never have the patience!

[Sylvan]

I had to plant everything out at the end of May because we were going away, and we had a frost in the first week of June, but luckily I had planted them deep so a few eventually came back from below ground. Sadly they didn't have time to fruit before the September frosts, but they weren't quite dead so I whapped off the tops and stuck them in water till they grew roots
Didn't really do anything else, other than potting them up and occasionally breaking them with the curtains...

[OakR]

Not sure if this is helpful to anyone, but from Sunday morning's sowing most have now germinated, to varying degrees

From saved seed

Green Zebra - from kid's sowings 4 out of 4 now up, from mine 4 out of 8
Yellow Stuffer 0/4 so far up
Black Russian 2 out of 4 up
Unknown Pink Medium Tom - 0 out of 4
Yellow Pear \ Bell - 3 out of 4

From my Uncle's saved Spanish seed

Picon 4 out of 8
Tumaco - 4 out of 8
Rosa - 2 out of 8 literally just appeared in the last hour

From seed packets

Sungold 4 out of 4 up
The Amateur - 3 out of 4

So a mixed bag - all in the same heated propagator, with grow lights in the house. Happy some of my first ever saved seed has come up, but so far two complete failures but hopefull the next 3-4 days will see them come through. If not will look to sow again next month but try a few seeds in wet paper towels to if they are viable or I messed it up somehow - the benefit of trying these now I guess.

[quanglewangle]

Planted out our Gardeners' Delight and Mandarin into greenhouse bed. Bed soil is running at about 16�C and air doesn't go below about 8�C so I hope they will be safe.


Tomato Gardeners' Delight and Mandarin in greenhouse bed

[veggiechicken]

Mine won't go out to the GH until the air temp is 10C+(day and night).

[Jungle Jane]

You could put some plastic tubs over the top at night maybe & remove in the morning,to give them a bit more insulation from the cold air?

[quanglewangle]

How close are they? Ideally they need at least 18inch between plants.
I hope you don't get slugs...

Closer than that, I am afraid - more like 12 inches (or 0.0015 of a furlong if you want to get all jacob rees mogg about it). I am hoping that a fan and better de-suckering than last year will allow closer spacing.

I don't allow slugs.

[Jungle Jane]

Not sure if this is helpful to anyone, but from Sunday morning's sowing most have now germinated, to varying degrees

From saved seed

Green Zebra - from kid's sowings 4 out of 4 now up, from mine 4 out of 8
Yellow Stuffer 0/4 so far up
Black Russian 2 out of 4 up
Unknown Pink Medium Tom - 0 out of 4
Yellow Pear \ Bell - 3 out of 4

From my Uncle's saved Spanish seed

Picon 4 out of 8
Tumaco - 4 out of 8
Rosa - 2 out of 8 literally just appeared in the last hour

From seed packets

Sungold 4 out of 4 up
The Amateur - 3 out of 4

So a mixed bag - all in the same heated propagator, with grow lights in the house. Happy some of my first ever saved seed has come up, but so far two complete failures but hopefull the next 3-4 days will see them come through. If not will look to sow again next month but try a few seeds in wet paper towels to if they are viable or I messed it up somehow - the benefit of trying these now I guess.

From a Sunday sowing they�ve come up really quickly,the others could be slower varieties or just slower than the others

[quanglewangle]

You could put some plastic tubs over the top at night maybe & remove in the morning,to give them a bit more insulation from the cold air?

Actually the air down near the (heated) soil is probably a bit warmer than I said. At the moment, with an outside temperature 6�C I have an air temperature at 1m high of 10�C and compost temperature of 18�C

I will probably go out and drape some fleece over them before I turn in. That will take the air temperature at plant height up to about 12�C or 13�C even if the outside drops to 4�C or 5�C. Wind is the real enemy because the greenhouse is not sealed well; or at all actually.

[quanglewangle]

Mine won't go out to the GH until the air temp is 10C+(day and night).

They have got this far in the same greenhouse, just up on a bench in pots on a heated sand tray. The sand tray runs at about the same temperature as the heated compost, so not such a big difference.

[veggiechicken]

Closer than that, I am afraid - more like 12 inches (or 0.0015 of a furlong if you want to get all jacob rees mogg about it). I am hoping that a fan and better de-suckering than last year will allow closer spacing.

I don't allow slugs.

I space mine about 2' apart (1 per pane of glass). If you had a wide bed you might be able to stagger them like a W but one behind the other doesn't work when you need to get in to prune and pick.