Beginner HELP

[Jkm5366]

I started some small variety tomato seedlings indoors and planted outdoors last weekend.
They were always a bit on the leggy side but stood tall until recently. Now they just pretty much fall over.
Is there any coming back from this or should I just cut my losses now while there is still time and go buy some maturer plants at the garden centre to plant in their place.

[applestar]

The 2nd photo is showing some sunburnt leaves. I suspect you planted them without hardening/acclimating them to the outside and the full direct sun.

In any case, if you just planted, you still have time to dig them up and replant— primary Issue here is you didn’t plant them deeply enough. When you plant out, it’s a good idea to plant deeper than the way they were before, in this case, deep enough for them not to flop over but high enough that the bottom most leaves don’t touch the ground. Then give them a light support until you decide on what to use.

I tend to use thin bamboo canes or similar at first. You might want to provide a little shade at first.

[applestar]

I was just this morning looking at some of my posts from this time last year — your plants look about the same as these, don’t you think?

Subject: Learning • Practicing to Cross Breed Tomato Varieties

[Whippersnapper x Faelan's First Snow less variegated] F4 pointed egg/heart

My poor seedlings. […] they look quite pitiful as they are going in the ground ...so much later than normal.

[…]



Hopefully, they will recover and show us what they got. I planted some of the the overgrown peas next to them to hopefully help nurse them along.
[…]

If you click on the link, you will jump to that post, and you will see they recovered and grew quite nicely. So it IS possible and you might not have to give up on yours. However, you might get some new plants so you could compare. With gardening, the more things you try, the more your learn.

[Jkm5366]

Thanks for the reply.
I did harden them, unfortunately the burn came during the process when I forgot them in the sun for too long Oh well. Lesson learned.
I am going to replant them deeper tonight and hope for the best.
Thanks again.

[Gary350]

Plant your tomato plants deep so you can put soil around the stem all the way up to the leaves to hold the plant straight up. Tomato plants have the ability to grow roots every place soil touches the stems. After you plant your plants you should only be able to see the leaves on the soil surface. Be sure to water plants every day for about 2 weeks until each plant has roots to support itself then plants need no more water. If it is too soon for plants to be outside at your geographical location then push soil up around the plants to hold them up straight they will be fine.

[Jkm5366]

So it’s only been 3 days since I replanted the tomato plants deeper as per your suggestions and they are doing great. They’ve already grown taller and look stronger.
Thanks for the help!

[Jkm5366]

Another question since you guys helped me so much on the first. Ha Ha - you can see in the original pictures there are two tomato seedlings in each “pod”. Should I now be eliminating one seedling out of each pod?
I was hesitant at first incase my seedlings didn’t survive.
My mini pepper plants are the same ....
They’ve been planted in these pots outside for a full week now.
Thanks!