Midnight Roma Tomato

2024-05-13 Seedlings

I just found out that you are supposed to plant your tomato seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before the average last frost date. That would have been around 2024/03/15 in Baltimore. I’m going to plant some midnight roma tomato seeds from Row 7 Seeds, along with some sweet prince tomatoes and sweet garleek.

Tomato seeds like warm soil conditions so I am placing them on a Vivosun 10" X 20.75" mat.

The first tomato seedlings started to sprout. Unfortunately I did not label this batch of seeds and I mixed them up with the sweet prince tomato seeds. It will be tough to identify the variety until they develop fruit, so always remember to label your seeds!

I forgot to water the tomato seedlings and they were noticeably wilted. I gave them a nice soak with the spray bottle, so I wouldn’t disturb the soil too much, and they bounced back.

Most of the plants have recovered from underwatering, but not all. The plants were watered twice using the misting spray bottle and the healthier plants were given water with a very small amount of liquid fertilizer.

Some seedlings look bad. I don’t think I packed the seed starting mix hard enough in the trays so it is sinking. It’s also not dense enough to soak up water from the bottom trays and move it up to the seedlings, which have not established their roots deep enough.

The healthier looking seedlings have sturdy branches that spring back when moved, but the weaker looking plants don’t look like they will recover.

I potted up 28 plants into 4 cell 4" tall pots from Epic Gardening. It took a really long time because I had to separate groups of seedlings that occupied the same cell in the 6 cell seed starting trays. Next time I will just put 1 seed in each cell so potting them up will take less time. It’s recommended that you plant 3-4 seeds in each hole, but the germination rate was very high and I have more tomatoes than I can plant anyways.

I planted 3 of the tomato plants in the garden bed with the 2024-03-17 habanada peppers. Each plant was placed in a hole sprinkled with edible plant food from Back to the Roots.

I separated the remaining tomato seedlings to 1 plant per cell in either a 6 cell seed or 4 cell starting tray. This will give them more space to grow their roots until I am ready to transplant them into a new garden bed.

There were about 9 more tomato plants that needs to be separated and placed into their own cells.

The plants in the garden bed are huge and the ones that were placed into their own cells a few days ago are growing rapidly.

I gave the plants in the garden bed an extra deep soak and completely filled the bottom trays with water for the plants that haven’t been transplanted because I will be out of town for a few days. It’s going to be hot so I need to make sure they have enough hydration.

The plants in the garden bed are huge and the ones that haven’t been transplanted look pretty good, too.

The first signs of flower buds appeared today on the plants in the garden bed, so I started pruning the bottom branches and suckes just below the lowest buds.Then trellised the tomatoes in the garden bed by placing a wooden dowel next to the main stem and tying natural string around the stem to hold them up. They aren’t too heavy to hold themselves up, but when they get tall and grow fruit, they will need the support.

I also identified the difference between the sweet prince and 2024-05-13 batch of sweet prince tomato plants. The midnight roma tomatoes are much larger and have a dark purple hue on the leaves and stems. The sweet prince plants are shorter and their color is predominantly light green. So the first batch of tomatoes I planted in the garden bed are most likely midnight roma tomatoes.

Next, I filled another Birdie Raised Garden Bed from Epic Gardening with a layer of kiln dried firewood, organic potting soil, and organic top soil. I then built a string trellis for more tomatoes.

To build the string trellis, I placed 2 6 foot metal u-posts from Ace Hardware on opposite ends of the bed and tied a string between them at the very top. The string spanned the length of the bed. I then dug 5 holes directly beneath the string in a straight line from one post to the other, separated by 6 to 8 inches. I cut 5 strings that were long enough to stretch from the bottom of the holes to the top string tied between the top of the two posts. Each string was tied to the top string on one end and tied in a loop at the other end. The loop was placed in the bottom of each hole directly beneath the top string and a tomato plant was placed on top of the loop. The purpose of the loop is to anchor the string beneath the tomato plant as it grows.

As the tomato plants grow, the main stem will wrap around the guide string hanging from the top string and crawl up.

I ended up planting 4 midnight roma tomatoes and 1 sweet prince tomato, I then planted 4 more basil plants, 4 more peppers, and 5 or 6 more sweet garleek plants around the tomatoes.

I watered the plants with a new type of fertilizer, Fox Farm Big Bloom, and a Cal-Mag Plus, which is a calcium, magnesium, and iron plant supplement.