Kitchen Garden Forum

Today,s advice to gardeners to delay sowing seeds until end of May because of the cold weather has caused me to wonder what advice we can offer to those who,ve already fallen into the trap.

I wish I,d sown my tomatoes in weekly batches instead of all at once.
I sow mine individually in 3" pots and I expect many will be too leggy by the time it's warm enough to plant them out. If I sow a fresh seed in those pots and chop the leggy ones off at soil level, with a sprinkle of blood fish & bone would there be enough nutrient in the pots to raise a fresh plant ? i,m very disabled now - everything is an effort so looking to cut corners even if it,s not good gardening practice and wonder if anybody has ever successfully done something like this

Dear Primrose, the leggy Tomato plant would have used very little of the food available to them, so that should be fine.
Another thing you could try with a couple of them is, pinch the tops out, just above the first pair of true leaves….they should send up two new leading shoots and you can treat the two stems as normal!

Thanks OH. I might try that as it keeps the root system intact. I was wondering whether to cut the tops off and put in water to try and get them to develop new roots as ive sometimes done with odd large sideshoots I've missed snipping out.

You can't defeat nature but it,s always worth trying!

Hi Primrose,

If you have deeper pots / cut off bottles you could just fill with garden soil which will have enough nutrients for them until weather ready. When you do pot them up a bigger size pot then plant with the full length of the stem under the soil. It will focus on growing the hairs on the stem into roots & it will establish quicker & be able to get more of it's needed nutrients & water if another hot summer when planted out.

Thanks Westi. I,m trying to pass on all these hints to Mr Primrose who's going to have to do all the planting out for me!

Mr Primrose will think you are exceptionally knowledgable, Primrose….

Well he's certainly developing a better understanding of why I spent so many hours working in the garden instead of cleaning the dust from the furniture!