To Separate or not?!

[AZGardener]

Hi friends- It's me again, deep in thought in my "potting shed" aka my kitchen sink I am starting to pot up some tomatoes and in some cells two tomatoes grew. One looks great and the other looks okay, perhaps smaller or leaning. I'm wondering if I should separate them now, which puts both potentially at risk while I'm separating them OR let both grow in the cell and see what happens after I transplant the whole cell with two. Thoughts?? Separate or not? Now or later? THANKS!!!

[Tracydr]

I separate all the time without any problem at all.

[AZGardener]

And you just toss the "odd man" out?? Or do you throw it in your garden to see what happens?

[KarenO]

Unless you really want or need the second weaker seedling, I would choose the bigger/stronger of the two and rather than try to separate or pull the weaker one out, simply snip it off at soil level with a little scissor. That way no risk of damaging the roots of the better seedling. As you say, you do risk both by trying to separate them and sounds like you were only planning for one plant per cell anyway. Survival of the fittest.

[PaulF]

Pot them both up. The weaker may just become the stronger. The whole idea of transplanting is to do a little damage to the roots so that the plant puts energy into growing a stronger root system. What the heck .. one extra plant and if it doesn't make it you are not out much.

[AZGardener]

That's what I started doing Karen but I think I'm going to let them grow and just see what happens... It is stressing me out (ha!) to separate them. Perhaps cutting them isn't too crazy of an idea however I hate to waste a plant either, esp if it's going to do well and maybe give me a tomato or 10 Thanks guys!

[SteveS]

Or I pot up the stronger 1 & keep the smaller 1 in the starter cell for backup.
Accidents happen, you know.
Be careful to not handle the small plants by the stems & risk damaging them.
The roots are very forgiving.

[Doug9345]

I've done 10 to 15 seedlings in a 3 1/2 once cup many times. Here's how I separate them. I soak the mix in the cup so that it's very wet. Once I've washed as much dirt off that I can I grab two plants by a leaf each and very gently shake them as I pull them apart. The mix falls off and the roots come right apart. A few missing roots don't matter. Just remember tomatoes are tough.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by AZGardener

And you just toss the "odd man" out?? Or do you throw it in your garden to see what happens?

I pot up each in 4" pots. When ready, they've usually evened up in size.
I do weed out really tiny runts.

[kath]

Originally Posted by AZGardener

That's what I started doing Karen but I think I'm going to let them grow and just see what happens... It is stressing me out (ha!) to separate them. Perhaps cutting them isn't too crazy of an idea however I hate to waste a plant either, esp if it's going to do well and maybe give me a tomato or 10 Thanks guys!

Do what makes you most comfortable...they'll be fine if you decide to keep them together. Last year I grew all of my returning favorite varieties of tomatoes as "doubles"- thinning to the 2 strongest plants in the 72-cell starters and keeping them together all season and they did great and seemed very happy. If the weaker plant starts to look too bad, you could just cut it off at the soil line and not disturb the other one at all.

[AZGardener]

Thank you all

[Tracydr]

I grew my black cherries as doubles last year. They seemed to do fine, although I had a horrible tomato year, due to mites, so it was hard to tell.

[Worth1]

I thought this was a thread about divorce.

Worth

[Doug9345]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I thought this was a thread about divorce.

Worth

No it's about separating siblings shortly after birth.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I thought this was a thread about divorce.

Worth

Leave it to Worth.
When you divorce, how do you divide the tomato seedlings? I can tell you how my ex would have done it. He would have wanted anything that he knew was my favorite.