The Craftiest Workshop

In 2020, the pandemic started around the same time that tomato plants should be started. Stores closed and many stores hadn’t even gotten their seeds in yet. I was unable to get any tomato seed plants to start my own. I even had trouble finding tomato plants, especially in Fort McMurray with our hardware stores closed because of the 1 in 100 year flood. I was able to get two plants while traveling through Saskatoon to pick up our middle son in Ontario.

At the end of 2020, I bought some seeds on clearance from Vesey Seeds and included in there were packets of different tomato varieties.

So, in the third week of March 2021, I planted two different kinds of tomato seeds. I always save my tall yogurt containers for soup broth so I used these to start my seeds. I poked holes in the bottom to allow drainage and filled the containers about a third of the way up with potting soil. I put four seeds in each container. I covered each with plastic wrap and used an elastic to keep it taut. After about a week, I removed the elastic to allow for easier watering.

Once the seedlings are up you could remove the plastic wrap but I find they like the warm moist conditions. Our house was still not very warm yet as spring felt late in coming.

As the seedlings grow, you add soil but avoid letting the leaves touch it.

Once the seedlings are 2-3 inches tall, you can cut the extra seedlings in each container to create more rooted plants. You clip each at the base and place them in cups of water. I used red plastic solo cups and put a few in each cup. In 7-10 days, each cutting will create its own roots. You can then pot each cutting in its own container.

I ran out of yogurt containers and had to use margarine containers and put two plants in each.

I had the original yogurt container plants plus all these margarine container plants…about 24 in total. I ended up giving a few away to neighbours but the rest went into the garden. The tomato plants were transferred to the garden on the May long weekend. It was still cool at night and even though they all survived, I think I will wait an extra week or two to plant them outdoors this year.

Here are the tomato plants at the end of July. There is a sunflower in there too. It was a bit of a tomato jungle. The plants grew another foot or so and there were so many tomatoes on each plant.

I think this year I will limit myself to only growing one or two plants.
There is no harm in starting more though and giving them away.
That will be one of my projects for this week.