Splitting tomatoes
27 March 2026 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI potted up (and have still not labelled) the tub of towel-tomato seedlings, even though it is really too cold for them even to go outdoors at the moment, and it means they will no longer fit on the windowsill as a result :-(
Initially I put a selection of seedlings into a larger tub, which I realised doesn't actually give them a lot of extra root depth although it does separate them, and then all the remainder went into a series of large yoghurt pots, three plants at a time. I now have *seventeen* towel-tomato seedlings just from that one 5x3" piece of towelling, which is of course far too many even without the second batch, which are now germinating all over the place! Perhaps I can find a local fete for them; though giving plants away does come expensive on compost.
I carefully mixed together spent compost from multiple bags to fill the pots, in case it was bad compost that was stunting the Roma seedlings, and they are definitely very different in texture, presumably depending on which type of plant was growing in the pots that were emptied out into them last autumn. And possibly the presence or otherwise of a local worm population :-p I did find a few more worms in the bottom of one of the old pots that had been left to dry out, but they seemed a bit moribund; not very obviously dead, but not moving. However I put them in anyway on the grounds that if they were dead it would at least provide extra organic matter :-O But some of the bags had a high proportion of what felt like scraps of bark and sticks (including actual recognisable bits of wood, probably rotted-off ends of pea-stick), some looked like rich earth and some were very fibrous. I tried moistening the compost before use this time with diluted plant feed instead of just plain water, on the grounds that it probably didn't have a whole lot of nutrition left in it -- I wouldn't normally feed young seedlings, being scared of poisoning them...
The two large not-tomato seedlings I carefully put into a separate yoghurt pot on their own. I strongly suspect them of being calendulas, but haven't seen enough of those recently to be sure ;-)
After I was becoming despondent because everything I'd sowed indoors had germinated while not one of the things I'd sowed outdoors over the last fortnight had shown any sign of life [edit: although come to think of it the purple mix did], the flax has suddenly started to come up -- not just in the pot where I sowed it, but in a lot of other pots by the looks of things :-D Presumably the result of the winnowing process :-p I have spotted various shoo-fly seedlings as well, which I definitely did not sow, so it must be simply the right time of year for those.
Initially I put a selection of seedlings into a larger tub, which I realised doesn't actually give them a lot of extra root depth although it does separate them, and then all the remainder went into a series of large yoghurt pots, three plants at a time. I now have *seventeen* towel-tomato seedlings just from that one 5x3" piece of towelling, which is of course far too many even without the second batch, which are now germinating all over the place! Perhaps I can find a local fete for them; though giving plants away does come expensive on compost.
I carefully mixed together spent compost from multiple bags to fill the pots, in case it was bad compost that was stunting the Roma seedlings, and they are definitely very different in texture, presumably depending on which type of plant was growing in the pots that were emptied out into them last autumn. And possibly the presence or otherwise of a local worm population :-p I did find a few more worms in the bottom of one of the old pots that had been left to dry out, but they seemed a bit moribund; not very obviously dead, but not moving. However I put them in anyway on the grounds that if they were dead it would at least provide extra organic matter :-O But some of the bags had a high proportion of what felt like scraps of bark and sticks (including actual recognisable bits of wood, probably rotted-off ends of pea-stick), some looked like rich earth and some were very fibrous. I tried moistening the compost before use this time with diluted plant feed instead of just plain water, on the grounds that it probably didn't have a whole lot of nutrition left in it -- I wouldn't normally feed young seedlings, being scared of poisoning them...
The two large not-tomato seedlings I carefully put into a separate yoghurt pot on their own. I strongly suspect them of being calendulas, but haven't seen enough of those recently to be sure ;-)
After I was becoming despondent because everything I'd sowed indoors had germinated while not one of the things I'd sowed outdoors over the last fortnight had shown any sign of life [edit: although come to think of it the purple mix did], the flax has suddenly started to come up -- not just in the pot where I sowed it, but in a lot of other pots by the looks of things :-D Presumably the result of the winnowing process :-p I have spotted various shoo-fly seedlings as well, which I definitely did not sow, so it must be simply the right time of year for those.