When is it better to plant a tomato for seedlings?

Tomatoes are considered one of the most valuable vegetable crops. This vegetable is characterized by high nutritional properties, a large content of vitamins and beneficial microelements. However, sooner or later, but any gardener who starts it or not, asks himself a natural question: "And when will you sow the tomato?". And, if a person is already quite experienced in this matter, he tries to derive a kind of formula that is aimed at calculating the date of planting a tomato. The truth in its majority, it does not work, because it is difficult to foresee this date. Although the time of planting a tomato, if properly selected, strongly affects the yield.

There are "unique", which try to plant the seedlings almost immediately after the New Year, i.e. in January. Moreover, it begins to seem to them that the earlier planting seeds for seedlings, the better the yield. In principle, there is a certain amount of truth in this, although in this case it will be necessary in advance to ensure that the seedlings have to be illuminated by powerful lamps or to plant the seeds in a well-heated greenhouse. If these conditions are not met, then for about 2 months seedlings, even late varieties tomato can easily disappear.

Therefore, other truck farmers sow the tomato in February. However, this time of year is also not the best for planting a tomato. The whole reason is that until the tomatoes are planted in the open ground, they will not only grow up well enough, but they will even have time to "acquire" various diseases. And all this will be even before the seedlings are planted in the ground. But if you take care of normal and high-quality lighting for seedlings and enough heat in the greenhouse in advance, then in February you can plant tomato seeds. True, only the early varieties.

Whatever it was, but the best time for sowing tomatoes is still in March. More specifically, this time the sowing of a tomato is considered the period from March 15 to the first of April. If you plant the seeds in March, you can get such tomatoes, which will be sufficiently prolific, resistant to various diseases and pests. And all this is due to the fact that it is during this period that the first shoots receive more spring sunlight and grow in the most favorable conditions.

In some cases, tomato can be sown in mid-April. However, the planting of seeds during this period is associated with a great risk for the plants themselves. Although, you can try to plant seeds of early-ripening varieties of tomatoes. But here too there is no guarantee for a good harvest. So the tomato is best sown in mid March - early April. True, depending on the climatic conditions, the time for seeding of tomatoes has to be slightly shifted.

It is important that almost all varieties of tomato and their hybrids are grown in seedlings for more than 2 months. But during this time, the seedlings have time to "bulge" to such a size that it is already inconvenient to keep it on the windowsill, and therefore it is necessary to drop them into the ground. Even if the time for this has not yet come. The optimal time for growing seedlings is 40-50 days.

Before you start sowing seeds, it is advisable to prepare a nutritious mixture. You can either buy it in stores or make it yourself. For what it is necessary to take 60% of peat, 30% of humus and 10% of river sand and mix it all well. It is highly recommended to add 20% of sawdust and 80% of low-lying peat to the bucket of such a mixture.

It is best to seed the seeds in rows, with a depth of 1 cm. Although, in principle, it will be enough that the seeds are simply covered with earth. When growing seedlings, the temperature in the room should not fall below +18. . . + 25 degrees.