Only sown a week ago, tomato seeds have cracked, germinated and started to reach for the sky. There were a number of jiffy pellets used, and approximately eight different varieties sown and most of these have successfully come through. With the light levels still very low, and the temperatures low enough to produce snow; the seedlings were starting to get very leggy and demanded immediate potting up. In being gangly, the danger is that they get so tall, they stretch out and snap at the root to keel over. The stems become very spindly if they are left in the heated prop for too long, and most of the seedlings had in fact been fished out so that the lower heat levels might slow them down a little.

Having done the necessary school work for this week, I needed to pot them up. As ever, I have help in the shape of my mum.(Happy mothering Sunday, to all those Mum’s -and dads, grandma’s, uncles and aunties who might occupy that role-on Mama’s day). I was all set to pot up the plants, only for Mum to arrive and wave me out the way. I was having a small crisis in not having any newspaper to put across the floor, so we have had to improvise today.

You can see the youtube version here.

I have lost count of how many seedlings there are. Suffice to say, there a quite a few. Tomatoes do grow rather quickly when they have optimum growing conditions. For now, I have potted the seedlings into 7cm pots. I-well, Mum has-potted them very deeply and right up to the seed leaves. All being well, this fragile stem-they turn purple when they are cold-will send out root hairs that will in turn anchor the plant into it’s soil and allow it it feed better.

At the moment, they do look very tiny and very small. All being well, these will start to become a little more robust and the true leaves will start to develop.They have interesting lacy quality that makes them instantly recognisable as being baby tomatoes.