Tomato progress-up and away!

This week my tomatoes joined the early greens in the cold frame. This meant of course the eviction of several other plants that had been snugly tucked up over the winter, but as its mild they haven't gone into shock and seem to be adjusting well. Its been a very mild week in fact, and if it keeps like this the ground will warm up in no time and we can all get sowing outside soon!

chocolate stripe tomatoes in the cold frame

Although I haven't sown all my tomatoes yet its very encouraging to see the two varieties I did sow(Brandywine and chocolate stripe) have all popped up. Technically they haven't germinated until they all get their first set of true leaves. This is exactly what you should expect from fresh seed packets. The extra "just in case" seedlings won't go to waste. There is still lots of time for incidents and accidents; slugs have begun to feed at night, I have found three in the cold frame this week, one happily devouring rocket, so I can't count my chickens yet.

Despite the cat-astrophy of the tray getting flipped over all the seedlings have appeared, though this tray of Brandywine look very disorganised compared to the chocolate stripe.

But if all your seedlings make it to the plant stage what will you do with the spares? There is a seed swapping day coming up I will put all the info from the newsletter on the next post.


I was talking to the head gardener in seed savers last year asking him if they would grow their own seeds to sell on as plants, particularly tomatoes. (after a disasterous tomato sowing spring).Although they do grow lettuce/salad trays they really haven't time for anything else. But he did tell me that a lot of people grow on ISSA seeds to sell plants later at local markets. I know the organic college in Dromcollogher do sell a lot of unusual tomato plants through the markets they visit. If you have extra plants that you cant swap or share later on you could consider selling them on or trading them at the swap day.Or if it all goes horribly wrong and you lose your seedlings you might get good replacements there! You can always buy tomato plants later on in the commercial markets of garden centres and shops but you are likely to encounter a limited amount of tomato varieties, and certainly nothing off the beaten track.

Slug patrol; even under glass or plastic you must keep an eye on new seedlings. Mild damp weather brings out slugs in great numbers and they will be hungry after a lean winter!! Go out at night with the flashlight and look for shiny snail trails. They are most likely to feed after dark. During the day time check under pots or other objects lying close to you seedlings, that's where they will be hiding, they don't stray far from their food!