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If I wanted my tomato plants to be completely ready from seed by June/July, should I start growing them now? Should I start growing them in something like an egg carton container and fill it with soil? What soil should I use? Potting soil? I live in an urban area and will have to grow the tomatoes in pots. Also, I'm looking to buy heritage breed tomatoes, so they may take longer to grow I believe?
Just IMHO....(and I have never lived anywhere near DC)
It is now much much too early to start tomatoes for your area.
From seed, tomatoes startlings will take off like gangbusters in no time. Tomato seeds are really quite easy to start. The hard part is getting the tomato fruits out of them at the end of the season, many many months later.
Tomatoes are actually quite a persnickety plant. They don't like it too hot or too cold or too humid. Especially when they're ready to set fruit.
Someone may come along with better advice....but you probably shouldn't start your seeds in advance of 45 days of putting them in the ground. Let's say you will put them in the ground on May 1, you should start the seeds approximately March 15.
Let's say all that goes as planned, you plant heirloom tomato seeds which (according to the packet) will come to fruition in 90-120 days. (count on the longer maturity).
May 1 (ground installation) +120 days give or take, will have your tomatoes ripe around the end of August. Which is just about right.
Mind you there a a zillion variables. Lack of rainfall, poor soil conditions, bugs and/or blights, late spring cold, early cold at the end of ripening season, heat waves--all kinds of things can go wrong the entire way.
But just supposing normal without any other mitigating factors, if I were you >> I'd start my tomato seeds roundabouts the middle of March >> on the rising moon. And sometime after the first of May I'd put them in the ground.
I know we are all anxious to get our gardens going, but i would hold off on growing them for about another nonth. They should be ready for the ground a couple of months after you start the seeds (at the latest, even sooner in many cases) When we lived in the DC area I would do the ground planting, starting about early May..
I haven't had the need to grow any because several of my neighbors do, they are farmers. At the moment they already have seedlings growing in the greenhouses and are continuing to seed in staggered times for the ones that go into the outdoor fields. The early ones are going to be "hothouse grown" and stay, but it appears they will be starting the seedlings for planting outdoors by next week and be done by early March. Timing the planting of the seeds will depend on what you have as far as indoor growing area since the seedlings will get quite leggy quickly unless they have ideal conditions of all day sun. The less perfect your conditions the later you will need to start the seedlings before your last expected frost.
Growing Heirloom or "regular" tomatoes will be the same timing. Tomato questions are probably the number one most asked ones at the office. I found a great website that really covered a lot of territory on when, how and what of tomato growing. I'll link you to the start timetable portion but there is a lot more there for you to look through!
Be aware although you are technically in zone 7 you are on the cusp of 6b and 7a (depending on where in the DC area you are) and you may want to hedge your bets and go by 6a timetables to avoid late frosts. I'm also located in that zone but we tend to begin the growing season sooner. I've got relatives in your area that also garden and have discussed gardening enough to compare frost dates and when things spring up and bud and while we are in essentially the same zone they are always about 2 + weeks behind.
In Massachusetts we've always started tomatoes in March but you are ahead of us so the above timetable sounds right. If you start them too early, they'll be tall and leggy and falling over but it will still be too cold to plant them outside.
You can start them in tiny pots or flats. I've never tried egg cartons but that would probably work too. Just use regular potting soil and keep them moist, not too wet, not too dry. When they develop their first true leaves, you could transplant them into individual larger pots because their roots will need the space.
The first two leaves they get are just the seed leaves. Wait until they get the real tomato plant leaves with the serrated edges. Have the larger pots ready with soil and an indentation to stick the baby plants in. Then lift the plants with a mini trowel or maybe a kitchen fork, something that will take the surrounding soil with it. So you take the little plant and a ball of soil which covers the roots and plunk it down into the hole, fill in the hole with soil, and then water it.
Buy some tomato fertilizer, I think it's 10-10-10, not the same as fertilizer for flowers. You'll need some as the plants grow and you'll need it a lot when they start flowering if you want to get fruit. Tomatoes are heavy feeders.
It's really easy and they'll do fine in an enclosed porch, less well in a window. Just don't plant too many because each plant will produce lots and lots of tomatoes and you be giving them away until you run out of people to give them to.
For the past several years, I've been jumping the gun because I'm impatient by nature. The result? My tomato plants grow leggy and spindly and I end up tossing most of them and buying plants at local sales. They can't be set out in the ground until the soil is warm enough and air temps are suitable, day and night. So I will do what I always did when we lived in chicago: sow my seeds on St. Patrick's Day. But it's going to be a long wait!!
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