#REPOTTING TOMATO SEEDLINGS HOW TO#

On days 2 through 4, keep them out a little longer, still bringing them inside and not leaving them overnight.Ĥ. Take them back inside when the sun goes down.ģ. On day one, bring your plants out for a few hours while the sun is out. The hardening off process will take approximately a week. Make sure that your plants will be protected from the elements such as wind.Ģ. First, find an area that has some filtered sunlight such as a porch that is covered. It can require some extra time but is well worth it to ensure strong plants.ġ. Hardening off is an important step to acclimate your cherry tomato seedlings to the outdoors.

#REPOTTING TOMATO SEEDLINGS HOW TO#

You will know when your plants are ready to transplant when they have 1 to 2 leaves and are 3-4 inches in height How to Harden Off Your Cherry Tomato Seedlings There are a couple of things to remember when transplanting cherry tomato seedlings to ensure a great growth season and strong plants. Whether you grow seeds from start into seedlings or buy seedlings from your local store, you will need to transplant them from their original container. How to Transplant Cherry Tomato Seedlings With other plants you have to be extremely careful to not injure the roots and with some vegetables you need to plant the seeds directly into your garden soil because they won’t tolerate transplanting at all.Use these tips on how to transplant cherry tomato seedlings if you started your seeds indoors or bought seedlings from your local garden center. They will have a nice tall stem again within a week.Īnother thing I learned is that because of this rooting ability, tomatoes don’t seem to mind having their roots disturbed when transplanting. I do this every time I move them to a larger container, and even when I plant them in the garden. More roots mean more water and nutrition being consumed by the plant, so faster growth. You could actually break a branch off a mature tomato plant and root it in water or soil! The trick to getting a great root system going on a tomato transplant is to bury the plant up to it’s leaves in soil. Tomato plants have the unique ability to grow roots out of their stems.

This plant will end up having soil almost up to it’s leaves.Īs with all plants, the bigger and stronger the root system, the healthier the plant.

Then fill with more soil around the sides. If the plant is short, you’ll need to put some potting soil in the bottom of the new container to raise it up.I cup my fingers in the “receiving” hand so I can catch the soil on my fingertips while the plant is protected by the cupped part of my palm. Even if you have a six pack of cells, you should be able to get just one cell out at a time. Squeeze the sides of the cell or plastic container to loosen the soil and tip the plant out into your hand.Do not pull on the plant, because it will just break!.Make sure the soil is wet so it doesn’t stick to the plastic container.Especially if your growing season is short: You want the biggest plants possible going into the ground on your last frost date. But tomato plants (and sometimes peppers) may take several transplants before they reach the garden. Most plants will only need to be repotted once before going outdoors. You don’t want to go too much bigger with the new container because the plants will spend all their time growing roots to fill all that dirt and not growing the actual plant.

For most vegetables the process is straight-forward: carefully pop the plants out of their outgrown container into a slightly larger one, add dirt and water. A big part of raising vegetables from seed is upsizing the pots they live in until they make it out to the garden.

Repotting tomato seedlings