Many residents of middle and northern latitudes are very familiar with the method of growing tomato seedlings on a windowsill. This painstaking task is time-consuming and takes up considerable space. But now there is a promising solution to avoid all these troubles - this is the winter sowing of tomatoes. The method is not yet so widespread, but experimental gardeners will be able to evaluate its results in the near future, having mastered the simple agricultural technique of late sowing of tomatoes. A lot of questions may immediately arise: what varieties can be grown in this way, how to sow without risking being left without a crop at all, what advantages does it have? Let's try to answer them.
Benefits of winter sowing of tomatoes
The secret of a good yield in this type of cultivation is that this process is the most natural in nature. This was exactly how it was planned so that the seed from the fruit fell to the ground in late autumn, was under the snow cover all winter, and in the spring it went deep into the soil along with the melted snow and germinated as soon as the ground warmed up from the spring sun. Winter hardening makes seeds more resistant, and tomato bushes from them become less susceptible to diseases and pests.
According to scientific terminology, winter sowing is called seed stratification, that is, the reproduction of a natural process. Accordingly, winter tomatoes grown in a natural way for a plant give an unusually good harvest. Moreover, these plants are usually not afraid of temperature drops or a cool, rainy summer, when it will be possible to simply insulate the beds using conventional means, and not transplant capricious tomatoes into a greenhouse. In addition, the fruiting process will continue until late autumn. Thus, podzimny sowing will be a real salvation for residents of regions where conditions are not the most favorable for the growth of tomatoes.
Winter sowing of tomatoes under straw
Another indisputable advantage of this planting method is that you will not need to fiddle with small tomato seeds, you can plant whole fruits, which greatly simplifies the gardener's task. It is best to use juicy overripe tomatoes from the strongest plants. You will need to pluck them before planting sometime in early November.
First you need to dig small holes, about 15 centimeters deep. Their bottom will need to be sprinkled with a couple of rotted straw, then plant whole tomatoes. You can use not only fresh fruits, but also pickled or salted ones, but not treated with vinegar. The pits with fruits are then again filled to the top with straw and additionally mulch the entire garden well until spring.
The seeds that are inside the tomato survive the whole winter in this state, and with the onset of spring they germinate as soon as the spring sun begins to bake. When the snow has already melted, but stable warm weather has not yet established, it will be necessary to provide the beds with shelter under the film in order to protect the first shoots from frost.
On average, after 7 days in a mini-greenhouse, you can expect the first shoots, they will appear in groups of 7-25 pieces, that is how many seedlings one fruit can give. The most important thing now will be to very carefully separate them from each other and put them in their permanent places. Of course, winter seedlings will be slightly inferior to seedlings grown in home warmth, but in a month they will equal it and even overtake in growth, since winter crops will be more viable for open ground.
Winter sowing of tomatoes on compost
When making homemade compost, when using kitchen waste, you will notice that seeds from rotten tomatoes germinate intensively even where they are not needed. Such vitality of tomato seeds can be used for their own purposes in order to grow magnificent seedlings by spring right in the compost pit. It is good when the farm has a compost pit, but even if it is not there, it will be possible to allocate an area of 1 cubic meter on the plot and dump a compost bucket onto it.
The agrotechnology of winter planting on compost is very simple: you will not even need special holes, you just need to spread whole tomatoes on a prepared bed and cover them with branches or lightly sprinkle them with earth. During the winter, the tomatoes will rot and the seeds will end up in the compost. After the onset of spring and the snow melts, a small bed can also be placed under a shelter to protect the sprouts from the night spring cold. As soon as the seedlings acquire the first leaves, they can already be planted with their compost, first in a temporary indoor nursery, and then together with the rest of the seedlings under the open sky.
There is no doubt that sowing tomatoes in winter is a good solution for temperate climates. But experienced gardeners do not recommend completely switching to this method right away. It will be possible to divide the planting, for example, grow half of the seedlings as usual, on the windowsill, and try to withdraw the other part using the proposed methods. This will make it possible to adapt winter crops to your climate and avoid possible risks of losing the entire tomato crop. It is also important to use only pure varieties of tomatoes, because sowing hybrids may not meet yield expectations.
