Tomato potting on help please!!

Furny

Hi
My Marmande tomatoes on my windowsill are ready for potting on as i currently have about 6 sharing a 4inch pot & they are ranging in size from 1.5inch-3.5inches & i can see the roots starting to show out the bottom of the pots.
What size pots would i be best next potting them in to please? also i'm a bit confused as i've read about burying them up to there leaves, do i need to do this if i'm potting on & keeping them in containers.
Thanks in advance from me in sunny Yorkshire!!

seraphina

I've just potted on my tomatoes today. I grew my seedlings in plugs and then moved them over to their own 3 inch pot.

I put some new compost in the bottom, transferred over the plug and then topped up with compost. I also buried quite a bit of the stem (about half the distance between original plug compost level and the bottom leaves) with compost as this encourages good root formation.

Once they've outgrown these little pots then I'll transfer them to the growbags.

foxgloves

Hi, yes, I've done my potting up and I do it exactly as the previous post describes. The tomato plants will be fine in 3 inch diameter pots until it's time for them to go into their grow-bags or final big pot or wherever you're going to grow them.

Furny

Thanks people i will do as mentioned then pot in to 3 or 4 inch pots.
Then finally they will go in to the last container (Morrisons large flower bucket) or growbags.
I appreciate the advice & will get on with it tomorrow now i know what to do!

foreign_correspondent

I fill 3"/4" pots with compost, knock the plants you are pr1cking out out of the pot, in their compost, and gently seperate them, doing as little damage to the roots as possible, then just dib a hole into the compost (in the pot they are going into) with a finger, and just shove the roots into the hole, and push compost into the hole to close it.

They tend to end up being slightly deeper in the compost then they were growing, but I do not make any particular effort to bury them deeply - but then I grew up helping pr1ck plants out by the 1000 when I was a kid, and when you have that many to do you cant fiddle about with them too much! (I would also shove plug plants into a hole in a full pot, rather than try and fill round them)

rosie383

On gardeners' world this week, they were showing how, if you brush your fingers lightly over the top of the tomato seedlings' leaves, that it mimicks them being in a breeze and encourages stronger stems. I tried it and it also releases that lovely smell from the leaves. And I think he also said that you should hold by a leaf when lifting them (or roots in compost) rather than the stem, as it is fragile.
It is on iPlayer if you missed it. In the first 10 mins of the show so you don't have to sit through the whole thing if you don't want to.

Furny

Yep thanks i only just watched it last night on I-player as i had forgot to record it so gave mine a little brush this morning!ha!.
I liked the trick with the dibber too, gonna give it a test drive today got quite a bit of potting on to do!

foreign_correspondent

rosie383 wrote: »

And I think he also said that you should hold by a leaf when lifting them (or roots in compost) rather than the stem, as it is fragile.

I tend to hold them by the roots/compost - and seperate them by pulling the compost apart rather than the plants - if you pull them from the top you are very likely to end up with your plants breaking in two!

Just watched the gardeners world - what a palava, (static dibber problems which necessitated rubbing the dibber on clothing etc) - just use your finger to shove the roots in... no static, far more sensitive, soft and less likely to damage the roots than his bit of bamboo... made me laugh anyway! 'Hold them by one leaf'... yeah, right, suspend the weight of the rest of the plant and compost by the smallest possible area... you are likely to end up holding one leaf and not much else! Who is he?