I promised you all a picture of my tomatoes after I staked them, so here it is:
As you can see, you don’t need anything fancy when the tomatoes are this small! I have used 3 chopsticks, and 2 cooking skewers and some (not so sticky) tape. You don’t have to invest in stakes and green tape. At least not at this stage. You can use things that you have around the house.
Make sure that you tape them loosely, they need to continue to grow. Make sure that the stakes are taller than the plant when they are firmly placed into the soil next to them. Be very gentle when you place the stakes into the soil, and don’t place them right next to the base of the plant. This can destroy a tender root system. You can see from the picture that I have placed my stakes about 1 inch from the base of each plant.
Happy gardening!!!
So, the only mature cilantro plant I have seen has been staked and had a huge stem and was almost 24″ tall. I had started some seeds a few weeks back thinking that I would have to stake them at some point. I did try to stake them. They unstaked themselves within about 48 hours.
So, here is my note: Cilantro is crazy, it wants to be crazy, it is happy to be crazy. 🙂 I have let mine grow into a huge mess and it is just as happy as can be. I could be controlling and really stake them well and make them grow taller etc… but I like the tender leaves and stems better anyway!!
Here is a picture of my crazy cilantro. This is after the harvest I took to put on the tomato platter I made! You can hardly tell I took anything at all.
Posted by Sara | Posted in Indoor Gardening | Posted on 01-03-2010
So, when I first started some seeds indoors I did not realize that I would need artificial light in order for the plants to thrive. I put them by a sunny window in March and some plants did not do so well. Mostly the issue was that they were very tall. Some to the point of falling over and dying no matter what I did.
For my next attempt (just a few weeks ago) I got myself one of those fancy grow lights. Thinking I had my lighting/tall plant issue solved I started my seeds. Once they were up they were still getting a bit too tall and alos pulling todard the window. If the grow light was enough they shouldn’t be pulling toward an alternate source of light! RIGHT. I needed a full spectrum light source. A grow light doesn’t have that. Strange right? It only has the spectrum for maximum growth.
So, another trip to the store for some shop lights and 100 watt daylight full spectrum bulbs (which are good for humans too) and my seedlings stopped stretching for the window and have stayed happily the right size.
The grow light it on the left, the “daylight” light is on the right.
Here is the package that the daylight light came in.
The day light is much cooler to use that the grow light, I actually have to be careful with the grow light because it gets so hot, but it’s great for getting seeds to germinate!
My success is due to a helpful person on Patti Moreno’s site – in the forums. The forums are great there. The only thing that would make them better is if they had more visitors!! So, go sign up and see what’s going on over there!
http://www.gardengirltv.com
Well, the tomatoes are about 6-8 inches tall now, and they are getting a little wobbly. I will be staking them with chopsticks to start off with. It won’t be too much longer before I will need real garden stakes, and I might need to separate them. We’ll see how unruly they get as they get larger. 🙂
A few more days until I will be eating fresh salsa from my cilantro! It is ready to harvest now, although I could easily let them grow for a few more weeks probably. That’s about one month seed to table for an early tender harvest. If you really want mature plants the thing to do is to stake each one as soon as it has mature leaves out. Mine have all fallen over, but are not dying at all. They are happy falling over and the next leaves that came are pointing up. I prefer the taste of very young leaves as opposed to the greener broader leaves that are on a more mature plant.
I will post pictures later!
Thanks for stopping by.
-Sara
I started some annual flower seeds indoors this week. My daughter, Maddie, helped me plant them. The seeds were so darn small I wasn’t even convinced that we had planted anything at all! But the baby Alyssum is up!
These seedlings are so small and delicate that I am not at all convinced they will live, but if they do we will have some nice ground cover and some for our containers too.
The other half of the flat that you see here has “Sunshine” Petunias in it…maybe… The seeds were so small they just looked like a bunch of sawdust really. I’ll give them another week and if no one comes up I have some regular Petunias I will be starting in there.
Thanks for stopping by!
Sara M
