Rules for growing and watering tomatoes on the windowsill
Tomatoes are a crop that is most often grown in the summer in a summer cottage, where there is enough space for tomato beds. But you can also grow tomatoes on a windowsill. For excellent results and strong tomatoes, create the best growing conditions for the plant.
Rules for growing and watering tomatoes on the windowsill
How to choose a variety
Growing tomatoes on a windowsill in winter requires a special approach to the selection of seed, choose a variety that is unpretentious to the cultivation conditions. Best of all in such growing conditions have proven themselves:
- Balcony Miracle;
- Indoor Surprise;
- Micron;
- Bonsai;
- Pinocchio;
- Bunch of Honey;
- Flogida.
Seed treatment
To grow tomatoes in the winter at home on the windowsill, you need to carefully prepare the seed material. For this, the selected seeds are poured with water or a solution of table salt prepared at the rate of 5 grams of salt per 100 grams of water. Stirring constantly, soak them for about five minutes. Seeds that are suitable for planting will swell and drown. Seeds remaining floating on the surface will not sprout.
Rinse the selected seeds for planting under running water and process. For this, the seed is dipped in a pink solution of potassium permanganate. To prepare such a preparation, take 1 gram of potassium permanganate crystals and pour 100 ml of water. Leave them in the liquid for fifteen minutes.
A solution of potassium permanganate can be replaced with a 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide. In this composition, the seeds are kept for 5–8 minutes.
Boric acid can be used for pre-sowing seed material. Dilute 0.5 teaspoon of the dry preparation in a glass of water. In such a solution, the seeds are kept for two to three hours.
Sowing seeds
At the next stage, the seed must be germinated. To do this, the seeds are caught from solutions, dried and laid out on a damp cloth, and covered with it. Usually, seed germination under favorable conditions occurs on the 4th-5th day. The seeds have an embryonic root 5-6 mm long.
During this time, we prepare the soil. On the surface of slightly damp soil, make grooves every 5 cm. Germinated seeds are sown in rows, deepening by 1-2 cm. The rate of seed consumption when growing for seedlings is 1.5-2.0 g per 1 square meter.
Tatiana Orlova (Candidate of Agricultural Sciences):
1 gram of tomato seeds contains 200-250 pieces. Thus, about 400-500 seeds are placed on 1 square meter of seedling area.
Tomatoes for growing on a large windowsill are planted in a suitable container. This can be a round pot, a rectangular box, or a plastic box.
Tatiana Orlova (Candidate of Agricultural Sciences):
The volume of soil for growing a small one indoor tomato plant is 3-4 liters. A smaller volume is undesirable because you may not get normal fruiting.
Soil preparation
The soil for tomatoes is prepared from humus, peat and turf.All components are taken in equal parts. The soil mixture must be enriched with nutrients. For this, superphosphate, urea and potassium sulfate are used. For each bucket of soil add one teaspoon of dry preparations.
This mixture is heated in the oven. Prepared soil 5 cm thick is scattered on a baking sheet.It is sent to an oven heated to 100 ° C and kept there for 25 minutes.
For growing tomatoes on the windowsill, it is better to take the land on which perennial herbs grew. Humus that has lain for more than three years will increase soil fertility. It is better not to plant tomatoes in the soil on which flowers were previously grown.
Care
Plants need to be properly cared for
To get a generous harvest of tomatoes in an apartment, you need to know not only how to grow tomatoes on the windowsill, but also how to care for the plant.
The first shoots of tomatoes at home will appear in five days. In the first twenty days, new leaves appear rather slowly. The next stage of development is characterized by intensive growth. This period lasts 15–20 days.
Organize the right crop care to ensure your home-grown tomatoes are productive. Caring for tomatoes at home is as follows:
- sufficient illumination of the room;
- maintaining a comfortable temperature regime;
- airing;
- properly organized irrigation regime;
- fertilization;
Picking
When growing tomatoes on the window, you need to know that only after the appearance of two real leaves on the sprouts, the seedlings dive. To do this, prepare in advance round pots with a diameter of 10 cm. Fill the prepared container with soil, pour it with warm pink solution. Place one tomato sprout in each pot. In the process of picking, reject weak and diseased seedlings.
After 20 - 25 days, transplant the rooted seedlings into pots with a diameter of 15 cm.
Shine
Growing tomatoes on a windowsill requires good lighting. If the tomatoes in the apartment feel a lack of light, the seedlings will stretch upward and look like hairs. Young green leaves will turn into whitish lifeless handkerchiefs.
Natural light is predominant when growing tomatoes on a windowsill. For culture, the normal daylight hours are 12-14 hours. However, daylight hours are short in winter and spring.
Tatiana Orlova (Candidate of Agricultural Sciences):
In winter and early spring, daylight hours are only 7-8 hours. This means that the tomatoes need to be illuminated for another 4-5 hours. To do this, turn on artificial lighting in the morning before sunrise for 1-2 hours and in the evening after sunset for another 2-3 hours.
Experienced growers recommend using additional lighting. This will help fluorescent or phytolamps. The plant loves direct light. This must be taken into account when organizing additional lighting.
At home, tomatoes for window sills are planted in containers of different shapes and sizes. This obliges them to periodically turn them towards the light by all sides.
An overabundance of light will have a bad effect on the culture. Young sprouts are not protected from burns. Therefore, it is necessary to give the culture a rest in the dark.
Tatiana Orlova (Candidate of Agricultural Sciences):
An increase in the duration of daylight hours above the optimum leads to a prolonged growth of tomato plants, without a transition to fruiting. Therefore, in the north, where in summer there is a long daylight hours, when grown in greenhouses, they are, on the contrary, shaded, artificially reducing daylight hours.
Temperature regime
Tomatoes at home are demanding on temperature conditions. The optimum temperature for sowing seeds is between 22 and 25 ° C.
The first week after the appearance of the first shoots, the thermometer should not fall below 16 ° С and rise above 20 ° С during the day. Maintain the night temperature in the range from 12 to 15 ° С.During the next month, keep the daytime reading of the thermometer at the level of 18–20 ° С; at night, the air in the room should not be cooled below 15 ° С.
If the thermometer readings are constantly jumping, the plants will feel discomfort. This will affect its development as well. Tomatoes will also have a negative reaction to constantly low or constantly high temperatures. To achieve better growth conditions, tomatoes can be taken out to the balcony if the temperature is more stable there and there are no sudden changes.
Airing
The room in which the pots of tomatoes are located should be ventilated. This procedure will help get rid of high humidity and normalize the temperature regime.
When airing, do not overdo it. This can lead to hypothermia of the sprouts. The seedlings will stop growing.
Watering
Avoid over-watering
Watering tomatoes is necessary throughout the entire period of plant development. This process requires a competent approach. Properly organized watering will be the key to getting strong, healthy and friendly tomato beds.
Culture loves moisture, but it should not be allowed to overeat.
To water tomatoes, adhere to the following recommendations:
- Use room temperature settled water to water the plant.
- In order not to overmoisten the soil, monitor its condition. The land should have time to dry out between waterings.
- Watering tomatoes on foliage or crop trunks is prohibited.
- Refrain from watering on sunny days.
- Tomatoes respond well to watering in the evening.
In the first month after the emergence of seedlings, tomatoes on the windowsill do not need abundant watering. During this period of time, it will be enough to water the culture three to four times, observing the norms step by step:
- Carry out the first watering when shoots appear.
- The next time you can water the seedlings when the seedlings are 10-15 days old.
- Watering for the third time is necessary a few hours before picking tomatoes.
Additional watering of tomatoes is allowed if dry air is kept in the room.
Fertilization
To grow full-fledged tomatoes on the windowsill, you need to remember that the sprouted sprouts require feeding. The amount of fertilizer applied depends on the state of the tomatoes on the windowsill. Combine top dressing with watering. Thanks to this, the maximum result from the introduction of nutrients is achieved.
First feeding
The first feeding is appropriate after the pick. Tomatoes need to get supplies of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. To do this, take 10 grams of urea, mix with 40 grams of superphosphate and 10 grams of potassium salt. The dry mixture is dissolved in 10 liters of warm water. The solution consumption is 5 liters per 1 square meter of beds.
Tatiana Orlova (Candidate of Agricultural Sciences):
For watering tomato seedlings, and other plants grown through seedlings, special forms of fertilizers are used, which take into account their age, their condition, the need at this stage for microelements. These are instant fertilizers Aquarin, Solvent, Kristallon, OMU-seedlings, etc.
Second feeding
The next fertilization is carried out in 7-10 days. For the basis of this top dressing, fermented chicken manure is taken. It is diluted in a ratio of 1 to 5. For every 10 liters of obtained manure water, add 50 grams of superphosphate.
Tatiana Orlova (Candidate of Agricultural Sciences):
Such a technique as feeding with an infusion of chicken droppings is carried out only in sufficiently mature plants (not in seedlings) and in the open field, and not on the windowsill in the apartment. Chicken droppings smell too peculiar. There are ready-made special liquid organic fertilizers for this.
If there is no possibility of using organic fertilizers, such feeding can be carried out only with mineral preparations. The concentration of minerals in the solution is doubled. 10 liters of water will require 20 grams of urea, 80 grams of superphosphate and 20 grams of potash fertilizers.
If tomatoes show a violent growth of green mass, it is better to reduce the amount of urea to 15 grams, and increase the amount of potassium salt to 25 grams per bucket of water.
Next dressings
Carry out the third and subsequent feeding no more than once every 10-14 days. Adjust the amount of mineral substances introduced based on the state of the tomato in room conditions.
Nitrogen-containing fertilizers are now fading into the background. An overabundance of such substances will lead to an increase in green mass. The appearance of flowers is stimulated by phosphorus-containing preparations. For the formation of fruits, the culture needs potassium.
The culture demonstrates the best growth results when using a balanced nutrition technology.
Useful Tips
- Be careful not to spill nutrient solutions on foliage. If this happens, rinse the leaves with clean water.
- Superphosphate is insoluble in water. Therefore, in two days of the planned feeding, make a hood out of it.
- Carry out preventive treatments for tomatoes at home. This will help avoid the appearance of various diseases.
- To prevent the seedlings from pulling up, treat them with a solution based on chlorocholine chloride or hydrol. The concentration of drugs should not exceed 0.1%. For these purposes, a plant growth regulator offered by specialized stores is suitable.
Growing tomatoes indoors is not that difficult. Novice gardeners are required to create comfortable conditions for the growth and development of culture. Careful observation of the culture will help to respond in a timely manner to the manifestation of improper crop care.
