When is the best time to start sowing tomato seeds: the secret to a bountiful harvest

Sowing seeds for seedlings ahead of time will not lead to anything good.

The timing must be calculated as accurately as possible if you want to collect a rich harvest of heat-loving vegetable crops.

Anastasia Kovrizhnykh, an expert of the online publication "BelNovosti", a scientist, agronomist and landscape designer, told when to start sowing tomato seeds for seedlings.

Harvest and timing

1. Early sowing of seeds, without the possibility of transplanting seedlings into beds or a greenhouse, significantly reduces the yield.

2. But it is not only the time of transplantation that is to blame. In January and February the daylight hours are still quite short.

In addition, it is not so easy to control the air temperature in the room, which causes the sprouts to stretch.

3. You also need to remember the risk of developing fungal diseases if the seedlings grow in unfavorable conditions.

Calculating sowing dates

The main condition is to sow the seeds no earlier than 50-60 days before the possibility of transplanting the plants into the beds.

In this case, the risk of seedlings stretching and overexposure in pots will be minimal.

It is often recommended to add time for seed germination to this period – approximately 3-4 days.

Based on these recommendations, tall tomato varieties are sown from March 6 to 10, and low-growing varieties from March 23 to 27.

It is also necessary to take into account the climatic features of the region, weather conditions, the possibility of transplanting into open ground or a greenhouse.