Best Way to Start Tomato Seeds Indoors (or Outdoors)

In this video I’m going to show you the best way to start tomato seeds at home. Whether you’re starting tomato seeds indoors or starting tomato seeds outdoors, this video will show you everything you need to know to grow lots of tomatoes, not leaves. I will show you tomato garden hacks and simple instructions step by step for beginner gardeners or experienced gardeners. Getting a huge harvest starts with sowing the seeds correctly. I’ll walk you through my tomato hack that all but guarantees a summer full of big juicy homegrown tomatoes!

If you have questions about how to grow tomatoes, need help growing a vegetable garden, want tips for gardening for beginners, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and “garden hacks” like this, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the comment section below!

MENTIONED PRODUCTS

Neptunes Harvest Tomato and Veg
and Neptune’s Harvest Crap and Lobster
https://www.neptunesharvest.com/shop.html
DISCOUNT CODE: NLG05

Seed Starting Mix: https://amzn.to/3vYEKDv
Vermiculite: https://amzn.to/49iqm7q
ViparSpectra Grow Lights: https://amzn.to/4blB7HY
Heat Mat with Thermostat: https://amzn.to/3OrdqUM

MENTIONED VIDEO
Complete Guide to Growing Tomatoes: https://youtu.be/9w-7RoH_uic

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Hey Guys, I’m Brian from Next Level Gardening
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I hope you guys are ready to have your best tomato year ever because that’s what’s going to happen after watching this video I’ve been growing tomatoes for 25 years and I know a secret and that is the success of your Tomatoes starts right now with the way you sew

The seed stick around to the end because I’m going to show you a hack to supercharge your seedling when you plant it out for maximum growth and production throughout the summer by the way I’m Brian with Next Level gardening and if you could let me know in the comments

Where you’re from and how many years you’ve been growing tomatoes and if it’s your first year definitely let us know that now let’s get growing so first let’s talk about what we’re going to sew the seeds in and that would be one of these party cups could be any color any

Brand you want them to be the 18 o size though that’s important so if you have a party collect all the cups and reuse them these things will last for years the only thing we need to do to the Solo Cup is to cut about one inch tall triangles

Just like that about three will do now the growing medium I’m using is nothing fancy it’s just some seat starting mix um or indoor potting mix you want to pre moisten it and you want it to be about like a a rung out sponge so when you squeeze it you might get a

Few drips but that’s about it you don’t want water to come pouring out now the reason I say indoor potting mix or seed starting mix is because typically those are sterilized why is that important if you’ve ever grown seeds indoors and had little flying fungus knats all over the

Place probably came from your soil and if you get sterilized soil uh the eggs won’t be in there not saying they won’t find it later but at least you’re starting off on the right foot I’m also going to be putting vermiculite over the top of the potting soil once we’ve uh

Sewed our seeds this is just another layer of protection against fungus gnats and also a fungal disease called damping off but that’s optional all right so we’re going to fill our cups about halfway full you don’t have to really pack it down you know just a little bit

But about halfway full and that’s it now we’re going to put two seeds right there in the cup now you’re going to cover them up with about 1/4 inch of seed starting mix or like I said I’m using vermiculite then we’re just going to water it just enough to wet the vermiculite and

What that’s going to do is that’s going to pull that seed right into intimate contact with the potting soil now the reason I sewed two seeds in here is one is an insurance policy so you can always make sure you got at least one seedling

Coming up in each cup now at this point you can either leave them like this or you can do the Double Cup method I tried the Double Cup method last year as an experiment and I really thought it gave me good results so we need another cup

Of the same size either colored like this one or clear you’ll also need some marbles you can get these at the Dollar Tree and they’ll last you forever if you have everything but the marble and you want to get this started today you can just use a small pebble the same size as

A marble now I’m going to use the clear cup I’ll tell you why that’s great in a minute all right you got your empty cup and your planted cup we’re going to drop a marble in the clear one and place the planted cup inside now that marble holds

It a bit off of the bottom of the cup now some people plant in the clear cup so they can lift it out and they can see the root development we’re not growing these in here for very long just a few weeks so I’m not really concerned about

The root development I’m more concerned about seeing through this cup and how much water is in there eventually you’ll also see roots coming out of the bottom of the drainage hole so you’ll be able to see the roots no matter what but being able to see the water level lets

You know if it needs to be watered or not I got this idea from Gardener Scott about the clear Cup on on the outside and I think it’s brilliant because seeds and seedlings are most often killed by underwatering or overwatering so being able to see right in there let you know

If you’re doing it right if you see the water level and it’s touching the Red Cup at the bottom you don’t need to water it may look dry on top which is okay um the best place for the water level to be is about halfway up that

Triangle I don’t know if you can see that that allows the water to Wick up through this soil but you don’t want it above that triangle that means you’re going to flood your seeds so about a/ inch of water or halfway up that triangle is the sweet spot but I would

Rather there be just a few drops in this cup than overfilled so at this point whichever way you go one cup or two and if you do one cup you’ll probably want to put all these in a tray so that the water doesn’t go everywhere but again

Make sure that water in the tray only comes up halfway on these triangles the next thing we need to do is create the perfect growing environment and we start that with humidity you want to be able to keep the moisture inside and not let the top dry out cuz remember your seed

Is only a quarter to an eighth of an inch deep so we’re going to take a regular little sandwich bag here and just slip it right over the top of these cups just like that we’re going to leave these on until you can look in there and

See that the seedling is up and as soon as that seedling is up take off the bag save this for next time you don’t want to leave the bag on there after the seed is up and growing because you’ll start to get algae growth and you’ll probably

Get that disease damping off like I told you a lot of funguses can thrive in that environment for the rest of this we need to take these inside the garage where I have my seed starting set up so I can walk you through that by the way don’t forget to label your

Plants all right we’ve got humidity with our baggie and now we need warmth now being indoors could be enough if if you like your heater set on high we do not plus this is in the garage Tomatoes germinate best at about 75° Fahrenheit 21 CS now to get this temperature uh I

Use a heat mat and I recommend one with a thermostat that way you can set the temperature and not have to worry about it and they’re actually pretty affordable now you can also Sit Them above or on top of a warm Appliance like a refrigerator if you have a radiator

With a window sill or a shelf above it that can work too with bottom heat Tomatoes can germinate in about 4 days it’s really fast now light is not needed for tomato seed germination however as soon as that seedling pops its little head out of the soil it needs light ASAP

There’s only so much energy in that seed and now it needs to get it from the Sun so keep a close eye on them and once they have germinated you need to either move them into a very sunny window and when I say sunny window it only works if

You have six at least 6 to eight hours of direct sunlight coming in that window very few have that if you do you’re lucky if you don’t you’re going to have to mimic that sunlight with a grow light now don’t get scared this is where most new gardeners get turned off and scared

I’m going to simplify it and show you three different kinds of Lights you can use depending on your budget the cheapest way would be to use one of these clip-on lights can can also use a fluorescent tube shop light or you can use a professional grade grow light I’ll

Put a link to this one as well as any other products that I use down in the video description there are discounts associated with some of them but for the other two for the uh silver clipon and the shop light this would be the cheapest way unless you need a bunch of

Them but for both this kind and the shop light fluoresent tube kind uh you do not need to spend extra money on a package light that says grow light those are going to be more expensive every time go to Home Depot Lowe’s wherever has a a good selection of regular light bulbs

And you’re looking for specific numbers on the packages you want to look for lumens and Kelvin lumens is just how bright a light is the intensity of the light and you’re looking for between 1,500 and 2,000 lumens Kelvin is the temperature of the light not the actual

Heat that it puts off but the color temperature you want it to mimic the Sun so on the package you’re looking for something that says daylight or 4500 to 6500 Kelvin that’s all you need to look for and it can be a bulb it could be a

Long tube it could be led it could be whatever they have instead of LED now maybe nothing with a professional grow light like this the grow light can actually be 12 18 in or more above the plants because it has an intensity that the other two just can’t mimic what’s

Great about that is it can cover a large area with the other two you need to keep the actual light bulb 2 to three in above the leaves of the plant at all times so you need to either raise those lights as the plants grow or lower the

Plants away from the light as they grow and you can do that by putting the uh the trays or whatever you’re growing in up on books or bricks and just kind of remove those a little at a time to allow the plants room between the light and

The tray so you really got to figure out how big of an area you have and which of these bulbs would actually uh be the best value for you if you notice your seedlings stretching I’ll put a picture up right here that’s what you don’t want to see that means they’re really

Struggling to get enough light and probably not getting enough now in most seedlings once they get to that stage they’re not you’re not going to be able to fix them Tomatoes you have a little more leeway on which which you’ll find out why in a minute but you really got

To get the the plants close enough to whatever type of light that you have now no matter what light choice you make the light needs to stay on 16 hours and off for eight in a 24hour period now I personally run mine all night long because the electricity is cheaper then

So one more thing to get the environment perfect and that would be this old fan right here nothing fancy but this works wonders for your seedlings they are here in a protected environment and in a few weeks they’re going to be expected to go out into the

Cruel world of the garden and deal with a lot of issues out there and you need them to be as strong as they can be so the first thing this is going to do is make them strong it’s going to give them a workout you’re going to see the plants

Kind of swaying back and forth whenever it needs to be an oscillating fan so it can go back and forth forth and the plants will you know move with that breeze and that’s going to get them stronger the second thing it’s going to do is keep the top of the uh potting mix

Dry and that’s going to cut way down on fungal issues and fungus Nets so this is an optional thing but if you’ve got an old fan laying around it’s well worth putting it in this area all right so we’ve got the environment perfect the light that we need to have them grow and

Now we’ve sewed two seeds into each of the cups if both of those come up you want to wait until they have their true leaves the first pair of leaves that come up are the seed leaves and the second pair are the real true leaves they’ll look like a tomato leaf they’ll

Look different so once they have their F first set you pick the strongest one and you clip the weakest one off at the stem so you have one per cup now if you’re not heartless you can save both you gently take them out of the cup and

Tease those root Roots apart and give them their own separate cups once they have their first set of true leaves you can begin to fertilize them every 2 weeks you’re going to want to mix up a liquid organic fertilizer half strength I use Neptune’s Harvest tomato and veg

And it’s okay to get them on the leaves you’re feeding them through the leaves that way make sure you check the water level if it goes up too much give it a chance to soak in still too much you can dump it out till it’s about halfway up

That triangle if you’re growing them in a tray instead of cups lift them up out of the tray make sure that the half the triangle is still out of the water anything you pour out of the cup or the tray save that that’s nutrient-rich water and water with it again next time

All right we’re fast forwarding a few weeks to where the plant is now Above the Rim of the cup this is where we’re going to turn a regular seedling into a supercharged seedling and that goes back to the question why did we only fill this cup halfway in the very beginning

Tomatoes are one of the few plants that actually grow roots anywhere their stem touches the soil and the more roots that you can develop the better and the sooner you get them to develop those roots the healthier and more robust the plant’s going to be when it’s planted in

The garden a more robust plant is going to have the ability to fight off disease and pests and produce more fruit so we’re going to take some more potting soil and we’re going to fill up all the way around that stem leaving about a about a half inch of space at the top

Just for uh watering and you may be covering up leaves that are on the plant it doesn’t matter that’s not going to hurt anything in any way now you’ve tucked your plant in all the way up its neck and more roots are going to develop in the top section of this cup another

Great reason to do it this way is tomatoes have two types of roots they’ve got feeder roots and they’ve got water Roots the water roots go deep to get water and the feeder roots are in the top section of the soil and they collect food from around the top so generally in

The wild it would be rotting leaves and things like that so throughout this process we’re developing more and more leaves toward the top of the soil now in just a couple more weeks your plant is going to be getting nice and Tall nice thick stem you might even see some

Flowers forming that means it’s ready to go outside as long as you’re past your last frost date so you need to Google your ZIP code Town wherever you are and last frost frost date and find out when the average last frost date is for your

Area you don’t want to put these out if there’s still a chance of frost in fact you really would like it to be in the upper 40s at night to put these out and that would be the coldest if you can get it in the low 50s even better so

Remember when I said stick around to the end of the video I was going to show you a hack to supercharge this even more when we plant it out in the garden this guy’s ready so let’s go out in the garden and take care of business all

Right so here we are in the garden Bella’s here to help so always wanting to take advantage of tomatoes being able to grow roots along their stem when you plant your tomato out you want to dig a deep hole as deep as you can to bury as

Much stem as you can now you have to leave some out of the ground and you can go ahead and take off these lower leaves or not it doesn’t matter I also like to uh take off the first truss of flowers so just pinch those off that puts more

Energy into the actual root and stem development rather than fruit right now so you want to dig as deep a hole as possible uh maybe here even that would be good in this bed I have gopher issues and so I have uh hardware cloth or gopher netting on the bottom so this

Bed’s really only about 6 in deep now there’s native soil underneath so the roots can still go deeper than that but planting wise that’s as deep as I can go if you’re in a similar situation or maybe you’re planting in a container dig a trench as long as you need it to

Be to lay this root ball and the stem into the hole then we’re going to pull that out lay it down in here and fill in around it gently pulling the stem up at an angle to be 45 it doesn’t have to be at a 90° angle you don’t want to do that

It’s probably going to break the stem once the stem is half buried it’s a great time to add a Sprinkle of organ organic granulated fertilizer and it’ll probably be aiming that way but it’ll straighten itself out once it’s in the Sun a couple days now

If you want to see The Next Step hit subscribe right here when I get to that point I’m going to put out another video and keep putting out videos to follow the progress and what you should be doing all season long if you want to skip ahead though click this video right

Here it’s an entire growing guide it’s got 12 million views at this point I’ll see you guys next time