Starting Your Own Tomato Plants

It's that time of the year again to start your tomato seeds. Instead of going out and buying tomato seeds or plants why not start your own.

I'm sure everyone has recently bought tomatoes for salad or other dishes. The next time you go to the supermarket or farmers market, pick up a variety of tomatoes. I like getting cherry, vine, and plum tomatoes.

As you start cutting up the tomatoes to prepare your next dish, remove some seeds from each type of tomato and dry them out in a paper towel. Label each type of tomato seed you have wrapped in a paper towel.

The next time you are out shopping pick up some small-to-medium size flower pots and a large bag of potting soil. Fill up each flower pot about ¾ with potting soil. Label each flower pot with the type of tomato seeds you are going to plant in each of them. Depending on the size of the flower pot spread out the tomato seeds in them so you can get a few tomato plants in each pot.

Once you have all your tomato seeds planted in your pots you will want to water them regularly and place them on a window ledge where they will get plenty of sunshine. If you don't have a window ledge, place them on a table that gets plenty of sun light during the day.

If you don't have an area in your house where you can get the tomato pots in direct sunlight, then the next best thing would be to purchase a plant light. A plant light is used for in house gardens and will do the job nicely.

Let the tomato plants grow to a nice size of about 6 inches tall. Carefully prepare your garden outside where you are going to plant your tomatoes. Be sure to mix in some tomato plant food into the soil.

The tomato plants need to be at least 10 to 12 inches apart and should be planted in rows. Remember as the tomato plants grow they are going to spread out and will eventually have to be supported with sticks and string to keep them straight.

The tomato plants will need to be watered twice a day. Once in the morning before the sun starts rising and once in the evening when the tomato plants are in the shade.

Be sure to keep the area where the tomato plants are growing clean of weeds. You will also have to re-support them from time to time as they start growing and the plants get taller and spread out.