How can the sowing of Tomatoes end before winter. Some gardeners want to buy time, and in the spring they disentangle
Do you want to sow tomatoes in the fall, freeing yourself from the spring fuss with seedlings? Then a fiery salute, comrade cunning vegetable grower! Today on the agenda - the consequences of a newfangled venture, which may turn into the feeling "What a fool I am."
On the one hand, a person, and especially a gambling summer resident, is always looking for something more profitable and more cunning. On the other hand, the Internet is always in a hurry to throw a "sensational innovative method" that raises statistics on the resource and gives false hopes to naive readers. I, Fyodor Tyapkin-Sklyankin, will not lie to you and will tell you how such an attractive idea is pumped, how to sow tomatoes for the winter.
They may just not come up
One of the arguments "FOR" is that the seeds undergo natural stratification during the winter (read - cold treatment), so they sprout together in winter and turn into strong seedlings. Is it true? Partly.
Artificial stratification is good because it is controllable. The summer resident has no idea at what temperature and humidity, and how long the seeds will be. Spring germination can be excellent or zero. Do not forget to make allowances for frost resistance and generally endurance of each individual batch of seeds...
Note to a friend: If you do decide to experiment, don't rely entirely on winter sowing. Be sure to sow at least a few plants for seedlings in the spring in the usual way, so as not to be left without tomatoes at all! And extra seedlings can always be given to neighbors ...
"Winter" tomatoes may yield too late harvest
The second argument - "The seeds will germinate in the garden in early spring and will quickly begin to develop. Doubtful statement!
I hope that you, comrade, are aware: tomatoes are one of the most thermophilic crops in our beds. It is likely that the seeds will find conditions favorable only in late spring. Calculate for yourself, how long will it take you to pick the first tomato?
Even if the seeds sprout, that's not all
Once, after reading the Internet, I myself, fearfully turning around, buried a ripe, ripe tomato in a greenhouse in the fall. The sprouts appeared in a thick bunch - which was problematic to untangle. Due to the exceptional tightness, the seedlings turned out to be thin, weak and elongated.. I, trying to unravel the tangle, cursed, threw it over the fence to my neighbor and put a tick "never again!"
A similar nuisance may well happen to itself when sowing with seeds. In the ground, which has time to freeze and thaw, they can walk back and forth and ascend not quite where you intended. And in what concentration per 1 square centimeter is also unknown.
Comrades! Do not forget about return frosts. My region does not boast of predictable, stable weather. It may well turn out that winter tomatoes will sprinkle in 1 night. And citizens, again, are left with a nose.
And if we imagine that the friendly seedlings survived... In all honesty, will you be able to give them the right conditions out of time? We are preparing for a week for the solemn planting of tomato seedlings in the greenhouse: we prepare the soil, do disinfectant treatment, apply fertilizers. Tomatoes sown during the winter do not expect anything good. And naturally we will not be able to demand a steep harvest from them.
I do not elevate my reasoning and humble experience to the absolute. I understand that gardeners may have their own experience, and the results depend both on the region and on the case. But I am already preparing containers for tomato seedlings, which I will sow at the end of February. And you?
Agree? Press, comrade, "Thumbs up"!
Yours sincerely, supporter of traditional approaches, Fyodor Tyapkin-Sklyankin.