How to grow Tomatoes from seeds.

Let's start from the beginning, as my mom would say;

First step:

Germinating the tomato from seeds to seedlings. How "fresh" the seeds are is very important . The life of a tomato seed in a shelf is generally about 4 years, anything older you will not have much luck germinating unless it has been stored properly. Proper storage of seeds would be in cool, dry conditions.

The soil choice for starting your seedlings is important tool. A safe logical choice would be a commercially available seed-starting mix from your local nursery or you can even get it from Amazon.com. These mixes are prepared specifically with the seedlings best interest at heart. It is not necessary to choose one boosted with fertilizer, as they may do more harm than good. Prepare your mix by taking enough to fill your pots and putting it in a clean vessel. It would be wise to let your mix sit overnight so it can settle & soak up all of the moisture before using it

Your container selection can be as varied as you like. You can use anything you like from plastic drinking cups to professional style “flats”. Make sure that there are holes on the bottom for drainage of excess water and you have cleaned them with a weak bleach solution, then rinse well.

Since seedlings can be ready to transplant in as little to 6-8 weeks, we want to be ready.

To start planting seeds, first take some of your prepared potting mix and fill your clean flat or cups. We then want to take a seed and place it in the center of the container. Place it in the center, because we do not want the roots to hit the sides of the container while growing. Press the seed gently down into the soil about 1/8 of an inch & cover with a pinch of potting mix. Pack the soil firmly enough to ensure the newly planted seed is secure & in contact with the soil. We need this contact to help transfer moisture from the soil to the tomato seed. At this time you may want to consider some kind of cover for the germinating seeds. Remember to keep the soil moist as no seed will germinate in dry soil!

Place your future tomato plants in a warm area this can be anywhere, just make sure it’s warm (70 – 80 degrees F) . Light is not needed at this stage as the seeds are below ground and no photosynthesis is taking place. Under the right conditions, the new tomato plants will start poking out of the soil in about 6-10 days. Once the seedlings pop out of the soil, they will need light, and a lot of it.

The new seedlings will need to have lots of light to get a fighting chance at growing properly. To little light an the tomato seedlings stems will grow long and stringy. If you find your seedlings shooting up right after germination, growing long, looking stringy and weak, they have not received enough light. You should consider discarding these plants and trying again because the likely hood of these plants producing is virtually nil.

They need  around 12 to 16 hours of light per day, so you can even  purchase some grow lights, if not, try to buy lights that mimic natural light if you don't get that many hours of light (it does not need to be direct sun light)

You will notice the first two leaves that develop are elliptical in shape, these leaves are called “cotyledons”. The cotyledons contain the stored food reserves of the seed. As these reserves are used up, the cotyledons may turn green and begin photosynthesis, or may be the first true leaves take over food production for the seedling. So those first two leaves are extremely important as they contain and produce the plants food until the first true leaves can emerge. Try not to disturb the plants during this stage, if you lose a cotyledon, you may even lose your plant.
Now when you tomato seedlings’ has a few true leaves growing, it’s time to transplant to a larger container. Remember not to count the cotyledons in this.Then gently take your seedling, ease them out of their old container and place them in the middle of their new, larger container. Take more potting soil and fill in around the tomato seedling, building the soil up the stem of the tomato plant, just below where the cotyledons are. You may think that you have planted the tomato seedling too deep, but no worries, you haven’t. It will develop new roots out of the tiny hairs on the side of the stem. So in essence, you helping the tomato become stronger and more resilient by providing more surface area for the root system. Keep on keeping on with you watering and lighting schedule.

A weak fertilizer is the best for plants in this stage of development.

you may need to transplant a second or third time to make sure your tomato plants do not become root-bound. Root-bound is a condition where the plants roots have covered every possible area inside the container and is now growing into itself , in a tangled mass, like a bowl full of spaghetti. A root-bound plant which is transplanted into the garden without having its roots untangled will not overcome the problem themselves. This is one reason why we want to transplant the tomato seedlings to bigger & bigger containers until you place them in the final one.