My carrot , pepper and tomato seeds are coming through what do i do now ?

[Lilyloo]

My toms are in small pot have about 6 sprouting about 6 cm
carrots have lots of tiny sprouts couple of cm again in small pots
and peppers just a couple sprouts coming through
Di i need to do anything yet ?
They are all on my kitchen window at the minute.
TIA mine and dc first attempt at growing veggies!

[TuttiFrutti]

I am growing tomatoes from seed for the first time this year, and mine are at the same stage as yours on my kitchen windowsill. Someone told me to "harden them up" so I am putting them outside every day now, but bringing them inside at night in case of frost.

Apparently if you don't do this now, it can be too much of a shock when they first go outside.

I've also been told to just water them every day, and when they are too big for the pot (and there is just one plant per pot now) move them to a bigger pot.

I hope someone more knoledgeable will be along soon to give us some more detailed information!

[policywonk]

Re-pot the toms into individual pots (small ones). They might need some support as they get taller - you can use kebab sticks when they're this small.

Thin out the carrots so they have more room to grow

Sounds as though you don't need to do anything to the peppers yet - wait until they're a few cms before repotting.

And yes, you can start to harden off the carrots and tomatoes now by sticking them outdoors. Mine have been outside for a couple of weeks now (but I'm in the south-east).

[sis]

when you re-pot tomatoes, you can bury a fair bit of the stem (up to the seed leaves) - this gives the plant more stability and it makes more roots on the buried bit of the stem.

[jenk1]

sorry to sound like a complete thicko but what does thinning out the carrots mean?

[Mspontipine]

OOh what an excellent tip sis

[madhide]

I have hundreds of tomato plants (well I say plants but they vary in size the biggest is 20cm with quite a few leaves on it)

They are all in individual pots indoors and I am wondering if I should give them any feed yet?

What stage do I plant them into the grow bags I have bought? I am a complete novice and any advice is appreciated

[fruitstick]

I am in exactly same boat - when do we start hardning them off? Is it to do with size or time of year?

I'm a complete novice but have tomatoes, courgettes and aubergines.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

I have been told that you start feeding when the flowers start to turn into tomatoes as if you feed before, you encourage leaf growth.

Was also told that tomatoes have two sets of roots, the ones near the top take up feed and the bottom ones water. So apparently it is better to water from below and feed from the top.

Some people on a forum I've been reading get a growbag and some largish pots which they cut the bottom off and "plant" in the grow bag and fill with compost, with the plants in the pot. A cut off squash/water bottle gets put into the growbag and the watering goes into there, then when feeding starts it goes into the pot at the top.

Apparently they need a certain temperature to grow, if it is too cold they stop growing. Apparently you plant them out when you can see their first cluster of flowers but you'd need to start hardening off before then.

My plan is that I'm going to start hardening things off beginning of next week and aim to have the courgette (huge and flowering on the kitchen windowsill) and tomatoes out at the end of the month as I don't trust there not to be a late frost and kill all my precious seedlings (currently more cossetted than the DCs )! My aubergines are in my little plastic greenhouse, growing well and will stay there, though I have read they can be quite hard to get to crop.

Have also read that you can let the size shoots of a cordon variety grow a bit then pinch them out and whack in compost for new tomato plants.

I do need to stress that all the above is what I've been reading and my pathetic attempts resulted in about 2 tomatoes last year so am not the person to be giving advice, but all this came from forums where they seem to know what they are talking about !

[titchy]

Pinching out carrots means pinching the leaves off a few (not pulling the entire plant out as this can disturb their neightbours), so the ones left have more room to grow.

However I'm not sure how much space you should leave per plant - anyone?

[gardeningmum05]

really hard to thin my carrots out, kind of lost interest and patience and thinned out as much as i could and put them about 4" apart, but mostly in small clumps. hope for the best now, seem to have survived my torturing

[Lilyloo]

wynken wow didn't realise there was so much work to it
Have repotted my toms , 1 per pot and planted them down to firt leaf!
Have thinned carrots and they are going out during the daytime and back in at night!
All good up to now!! (fingers crossed)