Growing young tomatoes from seed

[phill]

Good afternoon people!!
Need some advice please, I am growing Tomato Ailsa Craig from seed in small pots on a bedroom window. Planted them 2 weeks ago. Since breaking through, they have "bolted" for want of a better description, and are now very thin, with just 2 small leaves on top and are nearly 2 inches tall!! Is there any way I can slow this process. I have taken them out of direct light, but they just lean towards it. The pictures I find of young tomato plants show short sturdy trunk with a couple of leaves. I am obviously not doing something right. All suggestions greatly appreciated.
Have a good day, Phill

[sally wright]

Dear Phil,
to a certain extent this is what tomatoes do, especially the indeterminate or cordon ones. In the wild they would grow on the edge of clearings and scramble their way to the top of bushes etc to get to the sunlight. Put those seedlings back into direct sunlight as taking them out of it will only make things worse. When you come to pot them on into three inch pots put the plant as far down into the pot as possible; right up to the base of the seed leaves if you can. This has two benefits, it gets rid of some of the legginess and the buried stem will form more roots and makes the plant more vigorous. It would also be wise to reduce the temperature at which they are growing now to no more than 12-15 degrees C. If the temperature is too high at this stage this will also make them lanky. When they go into their final pot bury them again but remove the lower leaves that will be under the soil line as they may cause rot.
Ideally tomatoes should not be sown until 8 weeks before the final potting or planting out stage as it will be very difficult to keep them growing on to this point without the possibility of stunting them.
Regards Sally Wright.

[Geoff]

As Sally says at the end, a lot depends on where you are going to grow them. If you aren't going to move them on to a heated greenhouse or conservatory (even that might not be enough they almost need artificial light this early) throw them away and start again based on the timing Sally suggests, plants like this will rarely amount to much.

[phill]

Thanks Sally and Geoff. Advice taken, think It best to start again a bit later on. Much appreciated.

[bigrog106th]

We start our tomatoes and peppers in small pots by a south facing window. We put a sheet of foil behind the pots to reflect the light so that the seedlings don't stretch towards the window. It has always worked for us.

[phill]

Thank you Bigrog, I am going to start again so will try that.

[Primrose]

Yes it's a great temptation to get going too early with tomatoes and almost always ends up with disappointing results. If you want to grow them outdoors I'd leave it until late March or early April. They can't be planted outdoors until all danger of frost has passed so you could end up finding yourself having to rig up all kinds of outdoor frost protection that could finish off your entire crop overnight. Been there! Got the Tee Shirt! Better to have a degree of patience and start again later.

[phill]

Thank you Primrose. Starting again.

[robo]

I find that plants that have been left to get too cold tend to have a deep green blueish tinge to them even if you plant them in a green house they never seems to give good yealds some of the garden centres and b an q seem to sell these types, we never plant seeds before april some times its september before ours are ripe but last year we still had them ripening on the plants in november

[phill]

Thanks Robo