Lanky Tomato Plants?????

[Worth1]

Lanky Tomato Plants?????

Do you have them?
You may have done everything right but they are still lanky.
What I see most of the time is they are over crowded and competing for light just as they would if planted that close together in the garden.
You have two choices separate the plants and make them farther apart or pot up.
Even though the plant can do well for some time in the container it is in.
By cramming them together you are making them lanky.
By potting up you are essentially separating them and making them farther apart.
If at any time the leaves start touching each other it is time to move them apart.
Light needs to be hitting the soil under the plants.
This can happen under lights or out in the sun.
Your tomato plants will be stockier and healthier for your efforts.

Worth

[brownrexx]

Some people can't bring themselves to cull their seedlings but it allows for better growth.

I plant more than one seed per pot but after germination I allow them to grow for a few days and then remove all but the best looking one and it gets the pot to itself.

[AlittleSalt]

Guilty as charged. I started too many in half the area I usually have.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

Guilty as charged. I started too many in half the area I usually have.

Not making fun of or condemning anyone because I am as guilty as the rest.
But it is a fact that can't be denied and a very hard habit to break.
It is over crowding of the plants.
Like the so called tree huger wants to save every tree only to see them all burn due to over crowding.
When in reality 50% should have been culled in a way the plants could grow into mighty trees.
Not thin scraggly trees in the dog hair thicket.

[Black Krim]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Lanky Tomato Plants?????

Do you have them?
You may have done everything right but they are still lanky.
What I see most of the time is they are over crowded and competing for light just as they would if planted that close together in the garden.
You have two choices separate the plants and make them farther apart or pot up.
Even though the plant can do well for some time in the container it is in.
By cramming them together you are making them lanky.
By potting up you are essentially separating them and making them farther apart.
If at any time the leaves start touching each other it is time to move them apart.
Light needs to be hitting the soil under the plants.
This can happen under lights or out in the sun.
Your tomato plants will be stockier and healthier for your efforts.

Worth

Dang, that is the problem!

[taboule]

Very true Worth's advice. No way around it, put quality ahead of quantity.

[whoose]

Worth1 where did you learn about Dog Hair in Texas. I thought that it was only in the Northern Rockies.

[Nan_PA_6b]

Having never been to TX or the Rockies, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Nan

[Gardeneer]

I sow more seeds than i intend to grow. At the first potting up i keep one extra of each as back up for just in case.
At this point that my seedlings are 7 weeks old and getting hardened off, look fine at about 6 to 8 inch tall.even thoiugh i have some 2 per3.5" pot
I know they are a bit over crowded and gettimg root bound but since my plant out is just few days ahead, i don,t want to separate and repot them. The reason i did not do ot before was because the space under lights was limited.
I see no big issue. They will recover after plant out in good and fertile soil where they will be spaced 30 to 40 inches apart.
HAPPY PRING, march 20th

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by whoose

Worth1 where did you learn about Dog Hair in Texas. I thought that it was only in the Northern Rockies.

Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

Having never been to TX or the Rockies, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Nan

The fire that tore through Bastrop lost pines forest was due to a dog hair thicket but no one wants to admit it.

This so called thickets are all over the US due in part to (tree huggers) for lack of a better term wanting to save every tree and plant.
They are so close together and skinny they look like the hair on a dogs back.
When we were looking for homes the real estate person took us into this dog hair thicket.
I told the lady to take me some place else as fast as you can.
Why?
I said it isn't if this place burns but when and when it does it will be in a very big way.
People including her thought I was crazy.

As my wife and I watched the fire burn 12 years later just one mile behind our house one of the things she said quietly with tears in her eyes was "You were right".
Since its inception the US forest service has mismanaged our forests time and time again.
But we dont have to mismanage our own plants by wanting to save every one or putting them in containers too close together.
You dont have to have leggy tomato plants.

Worth

[AlittleSalt]

I had not heard of it being called dog hair. I always called those areas a thicket. It's the same thing no matter what it's actually called. As you (Worth) wrote above - it isn't a matter of if a fire will go through these areas - it's when. It happened on the property we live on in 1979 or 1980 - 12-13 years before we moved here. One small section of the property is still a thicket that we try to leave as natural as possible - it's just a personal choice that we all agree on. It is fun to walk in and works as a privacy area. We can't see the neighbor's house and I think of that as a good thing. But I wouldn't want our house or anything else to be built in that thicket.

The property that borders ours to the east has been let go/grow for who knows how many years. I've never seen the owners in over 25 years. The same with the property to our north. There is a county road between that place and ours.

Worth, you taught me a valuable lesson in this thread and I appreciate it. I will not treat my potted up transplants the way I have in the past. I don't want leggy weak plants.

[whoose]

Lodge pole pines used to be a dominate species here in many areas of Montana. To reproduce the cones have to be heated by a fire around 170f I think, to open. When they do many seeds are released onto the newly burned area and the flourish. So thick you can't walk through the Dog Hair. Pine beetle killed most of the lodge pole pines and now Douglas Fir is dominate in many areas of Montana and they do not need the temperature to reproduce and do not grow as thick as the lodge pole.

[Worth1]

Sorry for the weird way I express my thoughts.
It is a habit I find hard to break.
Worth.

[Cole_Robbie]

Lanky tomato seedlings love to be squashed back down when they are transplanted and buried deep.

That's a lot better than a lanky sunflower seedling. They don't grow roots off of buried stem. I was making little spiral curly-q's with the stem and burying that part to try to cure the lankiness last week. I don't know if that will work or not.