149 Tomato Seedling Tips. The Marigold.

Today we tackle a question from a listener who asks, why were my tomato seedlings last spring so skinny? Debbie Flower and I run through all the possibilities, and it turned out to be a very good tomato seed planting primer, something to keep in mind when you’re starting tomato seeds indoors next January, February or March.
The Plant of the Week is a colorful, warm season annual that will be widely used in celebrations next week. No, it’s not the Halloween pumpkin. It’s a plant with even more cultural significance, a couple of days after Halloween. The marigold. You’ll have to listen to find out why.  It’s on episode 149 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by SmartPots and Dave Wilson Nursery. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!
And this programming note: During November through January, Garden Basics will become a once a week podcast, released on Fridays. We will return to two a week in February, 2022.

Pictured:
Giant Belgium tomato seedlings.

Links:
Smart Pots
Dave Wilson Nursery
UC Davis Arboretum
The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter
Tomato and pepper seed starting tips
Seed starting mix
Indoor seed starting kit  with light stand fixtures
More indoor light fixtures for good seedling growth

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Chapters

• 1:22 Tips for Growing Tomatoes from Seed
• 18:53 Smart Pots!
• 19:54 Dave Wilson Nursery
• 20:57 Plant of the Week: the Marigold

Transcript

GB 149 Tomato Seedlings. Marigolds. TRANSCRIPT

29:50

SPEAKERS

Debbie Flower, Ken from Palo Alto, Warren Roberts, Farmer Fred

Farmer Fred  00:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred  00:32

Today we tackle a question from a listener who asks, "Why were my tomato seedlings last spring so skinny?" Debbie Flower and I run through all the possibilities; and, it turned out to be a very good tomato seed planting primer. Something you may want to keep in mind when you're starting tomato seeds, indoors, next January, February, or March. The Plant of the Week is a colorful, warm season annual that will be widely used in celebrations next week. No, it's not the Halloween pumpkin. It's a plant with even more cultural significance a couple of days after Halloween. It's the marigold. You're going to have to listen to find out why. It's on Episode 149 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go.

Ken from Palo Alto  01:26

Hi Fred. This is Ken from Palo Alto. And this last year I started growing my tomato plants from seed. Starting last January, I did various varieties, including Better Boy, Early Girl, Cherokee Purple, etc. And all the plants seem to be a lot skinnier and less hardy in March, when the garden center varieties came out. The plants also didn't seem to do as well in general. Is there any hints of what I could do better next year to grow hardier seedlings? Thanks again for all your advice. And I value your expertise. Thank you.

Farmer Fred  02:08

Thank you, Ken from Palo Alto, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He contacted us via Speakpipe. If you'd like to give us a question, I hope you could use Speakpipe.com. It's very easy. You go to speakpipe.com slash gardenbasics, and press the button and away you go. We would love to hear your voice here on the Garden Basics podcast. Debbie Flower is here, our favorite retired college horticultural professor. It sounds like Ken may need, I'm thinking, more light.

Debbie Flower  02:40

Yeah, well first of all, congratulations to Ken for starting his tomatoes from seed and getting a plant. You know, that's  a hurdle that not everyone gets over.

Farmer Fred  02:49

But it's a good hurdle to get over just because there is just so many more varieties available. 

Debbie Flower  02:54

Yes, seeds, yes. And January was about the right time to start tomatoes from seed in Palo Alto. So good timing. I think you're right, I think light is one of the factors that he may need to increase. And the other one that came to mind for me was wind. Plants, he said they're thin, plants will be thin, unless they're challenged by movement. The experiment was done by shaking a greenhouse table for 10 minutes a day. I'm not into shaking the table. So I use a fan and that shakes the stem of the plant and makes it thicker, it'll be a shorter, stouter plant. 10 minutes a day is is a good amount. And so I use an oscillating fan that goes back and forth and makes those stems move. If you've ever had a cast, have you? I have not had a cast on on a limb an arm or leg something like that. People who have to have broken bone have an arm and a leg have to wear a cast that immobilizes that part of the limb, for I think it's about six weeks. I'm sure it varies. But when they take the cast off, that limb is very weak. It's thin and weak. It has no muscle on it because it hasn't been used. That's what I liken the tomato that has been grown without wind, it's the one that's been in the cast. The one that's grown with wind is the one that has been able to exercise all those six weeks and create muscle in your plant. It's called reaction wood.

Farmer Fred  04:20

Reaction wood. Yes, yeah. Ken didn't give us very many details about how or where he's growing these seedlings. And I have a funny feeling, if it was just in a sunny window. They would be rather bent.

Debbie Flower  04:36

Yes, yes, he talked about thin but he didn't mention bent. But they would bend toward the light, right? He may have turned them daily and gotten them to grow straight or straighter, but that won't thicken them up.

Farmer Fred  04:48

Right. And a fan is a great idea and maybe one of those indoor type greenhouses that's basically a plant rack with a set of fluorescent lights or LED lights above it that you can adjust the height. And a lot of people don't put those lights close enough, right to the seedlings, it has to be just a couple of inches above.

Debbie Flower  05:11

Yes, and they need to be, in the case of fluorescents, they need to be relatively new, not the ones you take out of your office, because you're putting new ones in the office or whatever, they need to be relatively new. Fluorescent light bulbs decline in quality over time. And they need to be very close, it needs to be a very strong amount of light. In a class with students, I had them use light meters and measure amounts of light close to the windows, let's say, and then a foot away, and the amount was incredibly different. Much less light a foot away from the window. Close to a fluorescent bulb and a foot away, the amount of light declines very quickly when you get away from those light sources. So the light over tomato plants, either LED or fluorescent, would be ideal. Because they're cool sources of light and you won't burn the leaves. You have them so close to the plant. Should be max two inches over the plant.

Farmer Fred  06:09

And you would want it on a rack where you can easily adjust the height of the lights to allow for the plants to grow, right.

Debbie Flower  06:15

And those are made, like you said, sort of like indoor greenhouses. One setup I had was in the guest room of a house and I hung eyebolts in the ceiling and chains from the eyebolts and a fluorescent fixture on the chains. And so I could raise and lower the two ends of the fluorescent bulb and move the plants around so the taller ones were on one side and the shorter ones on the other side and keep the light approximately two inches away from those plants.

Farmer Fred  06:43

And in my experience with fluorescent lights, the longer ones are better than the shorter ones. You can buy fluorescent bulbs as small as a foot long, but I always opted for the three foot long in a dual fixture where you could mix a shop light with a cool light bulb that had sort of a blue hue to it.

Debbie Flower  07:03

Right. Fluorescents do come in and I'm an LED is for sure do come in different colors. You don't have to spend the money for a full spectrum bulb to grow seedlings. If you want to bring something to flower and fruit then, yes, you do. But just to grow seedlings  to start your tomatoes for your vegetable garden, you don't need a full spectrum light bulb. But you do need the blue spectrum and the pink spectrum. The one that you use in the bathroom will be will be the pink one because it makes you look lovely. And really yeah, I know that it makes your flesh look beautiful. And then there will be the cool ones, which are the more office type bulbs. But they should tell you whether they're in the blue spectrum, which is cool. Or the warm spectrum, which is the reds and you want one of each. So yes, you want a fixture that will hold two bulbs.

Farmer Fred  07:51

And for those of you born in the 21st century, yes, LED lights are the way to go.

Debbie Flower  07:55

They are, if you've got the fixture and the money, they've gotten a lot cheaper.

Farmer Fred  07:59

Yes, they have and they're very adjustable. Some are on like goosenecks, where you can just sort of bend it to get closer to the plant.

Debbie Flower  08:06

If you're doing a bunch of plants, and he mentioned 1-2-3  cultivars, that one gooseneck may not be enough, right.

Farmer Fred  08:14

As far as fertilization of the seedlings, with that help at all?

Debbie Flower  08:18

Hard to tell. He didn't tell us anything about the color of the plants, I would use color of the leaves and the stems as an indication of deficiency. If they're a good green color, then whatever he was doing is probably sufficient. But if they weren't, if they were showing yellow, then that  would indicate a lack of nitrogen, but "weekly, weakly". Weak fertilization done on a regular basis is the best thing for the plants.

Farmer Fred  08:44

I guess we should go all the way back to the beginning to help Ken out here. Because you know now I'm thinking well, maybe he was using garden soil or something heavy, that  retained too much moisture, and was too cool.

Farmer Fred  08:56

So if you're going to start tomatoes from seed, there are several ways you can do it. My favorite is to start them in three inch containers, maybe three to a pot, and then as they come up, keep the strongest one and remove, cut off, the other two. The reason for the three inch pot is that way you can keep it in that pot until it's time to transfer it to the yard. It's saves you a step and you won't be damaging the roots. The soil that I would use would be a seed starting mix right? And that's good enough for getting that plant started. Yes it is. And a seed starting mix is usually a mix of of peat or coir.

Debbie Flower  09:40

Compost. And some organic component.

Farmer Fred  09:44

And perlite or your favorite, lava rock, or whatever it's called.

Debbie Flower  09:48

Right. Pumice. Yes. Pumice fairly large, but it's lightweight. Perlite is the addition to container media that I use really only when I'm starting seeds. It is actually lava rock, a type of expanded rock which lava rock is. Pumice doesn't come out of a volcano, but it becomes somewhat like a lava rock when it's treated. It is heated very hot, like lava rock is, and it pops out, sort of like popcorn. But it's lightweight and when you start seeds, Pumice is probably a little bit too heavy, too big unless, I haven't found small pumice. It probably exists, but I haven't found it. So you want small part particle sizes. The pumice I'm aware of, is a little too big for that. 

Farmer Fred  10:30

So maybe like a 1/3 mix of peat moss, compost and perlite, right and you're good to go. As long as you have good drainage. And I think a lot of people make the mistake of just putting these containers where they're growing their tomato seedlings in a solid container where there is no drainage per se. that it's basically sitting in water and you need to raise it and or have a bottom container that allows for the water to fall off to a lower level.

Debbie Flower  10:59

Over time, the media in a seed starting mix, as in any container media soilless mix, will shrink down and you think you're watering the plant. But the water goes around the top and down the sides and out the bottom and you have drainage in the grow pot and then you're in some kind of solid structure underneath, pie plates work. Whatever. This won't be at the beginning, where you're first starting to see it. It will be a month in, let's say, and I let it sit in that water for an hour, maybe two hours. I go do something else and I come back and then drain the liquid that's in the bottom. That amount of time allows some of the moisture to be soaked back up into the pot. If you're using a lot of fertilizer, you may end up with a white crust on the surface. That means the soil has been soaked with the water and the nutrients have been soaked up to this top of the surface and the water evaporated, but the nutrients stay behind. That's an indication of too much fertilizer. But it allows that media to get wet.

Debbie Flower  11:07

At what point would you fertilize those seedlings?

Debbie Flower  11:25

I can remember laying in bed at home when I was teaching and the students had started their seeds in media without fertilizer and just worrying. It's a weekend, you know, and I had to go to school, open the greenhouse and see what was going on. When you see the first true leaves would probably be  the time  to fertilize. All seeds contain a baby plant. Fully formed baby plants got roots, got something called cotyledons, which are seed leaves and it's got a bud, which contains the first true leaves of the plant. And all it needs to do is get out of that seed, and start growing, and get to sun. Until it gets to sun, it can make its own food. It uses what's in the cotyledons, which is plant food to survive. In some plants, the cotyledons come up, beans are classic. The cotyledons come out of the ground you can see them, they look like a split bean one half on either side of the stem. Peas would be the same way. And in tomatoes, yes they get a cotyledon. It's a long thin cotyledon leaf and the first true leaves in a tomato are divided and they have a more toothed margin to the edges of all those divisions. They look like a tomato leaf,  that's the first true leaf at that point, the cotyledon food has typically been used up or is almost used up and the cotyledons will turn yellow and fall off. And so that's the point where it may need more fertilizer.

Farmer Fred  13:26

and here we come back to Weekly, weakly.

Debbie Flower  13:28

Weekly, weakly. Right, as a weak fertilizer.

Farmer Fred  13:31

Applied weekly right? And there are a lot of great fertilizers out there. it's just a matter of not overdoing it.

Debbie Flower  13:40

Right. I read the label and apply less than it says, maybe as little as a quarter of what it says on the label to use.

Farmer Fred  13:52

And probably the easiest to apply would be water soluble fertilizers. And whatever you do, do not, if you're using crystals that are water soluble, don't scatter the crystals on the surface of the soil and then water it in.

Debbie Flower  14:04

That will burn, Yeah. I have to say that I have with the students because I did lay at home worrying.

Farmer Fred  14:13

Exciting life you lead. 

Debbie Flower  14:14

I know. I did put a little bit of time release fertilizer into the seedling media. Hmm. That I have to say it may cause problems with some plants, it did not with tomatoes. There is the potential that it could be too strong. Time release fertilizer is pelleted and as when it gets wet, the coating they act somewhat differently that the coating reacts to moisture, it either dissolves or it allows enough moisture in, that little pellet pops open. In either case, when the fertilizer is released right at that pellet, fertilizer is very strong, and that can harm a baby root. And if you've only got one baby root, it could kill your plant. I did not experience in tomatoes by using time release fertilizer in the seedling mix. It's possible that other plants did not come up because of that technique. So it's something to be very careful with if you're going to try it. Do half the crop with, half the crop without. See what happens.

Farmer Fred  15:17

One thing we didn't mention, and we should stress, is before you put that seed in that mix of peat moss and perlite and compost, would be to thoroughly water that mix.

Debbie Flower  15:29

Right, I always want the students to water, not everyone agrees with me. But to water the mix before we put it in the pot. In little pots, it's not so critical. Six packs, let's say. But the larger the pot you use, the more critical it becomes. Because when you water, there's nothing to help draw that moisture down into the media. Peat moss in particular, is hydrophobic, it does not easily absorb moisture, and you have to sort of work it to get it to absorb moisture, to wet it when it is perfectly dry. Other things aren't quite so bad in terms of being hydrophobic. If it's wet before you put it in the pot, you know it's wet all the way down and the roots can travel all the way down.

Farmer Fred  16:12

My fear would be if you don't water that mix, and you stick the seed in a half inch or whatever the instructions tell you, probably a quarter inch, basically, and then you water it, it's going to drive that seed further down into the mix.

Debbie Flower  16:27

Well that's due to moisture settles things a little bit. Yeah, you don't ever want to push on the media in a container, you do the tap tap.

Farmer Fred  16:34

Explain that

Debbie Flower  16:35

You say you've made your media, we used kitty litter pans or bus trucks, the kind of thing you'd see in a restaurant where they would collect your plates. And students would get media, water it, then use their hands to mix. I like to wear gloves at home when I do that part so that it doesn't get under my fingernails and destroy everything. So mixing the wet, the moist media, then fill the pots to the top, to the very top, and then tap it on the bench. So you're just hitting the bench a couple of times, and that settles it. If you push on it, we're strong compared to baby plants. And we can push all the holes out of that media and then the plant struggles to get its roots down. It needs air. it needs air, absolutely, down there.

Farmer Fred  17:21

 I, on the other hand, will take the three ingredients in that soil mix and mix it by hand because I love the feel in a bucket and then pour water in the bucket. Come back a couple hours later. let it do its thing. Yep. And then just grab a big glob of it and throw it in a three inch container. Okay, I'll have to add the tapping to it.

Debbie Flower  17:42

Well maybe the throwing is a substitute for the tapping.

Farmer Fred  17:47

Ken, I hope that helps you and that may solve it in a lot of situations, the skinny stems.

Debbie Flower  17:54

Right. and And contact us again and let us know what happens.

Farmer Fred  17:57

Yeah, one word of warning, though, is it used to be that you could plant that tomato seed in late February and then by late April, it would be a transplantable size after eight weeks or so. But in this day and age, with people planting out here in California, especially now in late March and early April. And I still say you're just lucky. That's all you're just lucky. You may want to move the seed planting back to late January, but I still prefer February. Starting tomato seeds. I'll start pepper seeds in January because they're slower, much slower.

Debbie Flower  18:31

But in Palo Alto and here, where we live, that we have such a long growing season that there's no need to rush it. But there are people who want to have the first tomato on the block.

Farmer Fred  18:40

Yes they do. If you want that, just grow a cherry tomato. Ken, can thanks so much for your question, Debbie Flower, thanks for your help on this.

Debbie Flower  18:48

Oh, it's a pleasure, Fred.

Farmer Fred  18:53

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Farmer Fred  19:57

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Farmer Fred  20:51

Every week we like to talk with Warren Roberts. He is the superintendent emeritus of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. And he has a great plant of the week for us. And here it is Halloween week. But there are even holidays after Halloween, including All Saints Day and All Souls Day and there is a plant that's associated with November 2, All Souls Day, and it is a plant that does well in many, many places. And Warren, I bet that would be the marigold.

Warren Roberts  21:22

That would be the marigold. And before we delve into it too much. The marigold that I'm talking about today is the one with the generic name Tagetes. Because there is also the word marigold is used for calendula. Calendula, is similar, colors orange and yellow flowers. But the Tagetes has become more common and more common, more commonly grown and the name Tagetes comes from Etruscan. Tagetes means born for the plowing of the earth. And it  refers, in this case, to the ease with which the marigolds are cultivated. They are native to mostly to Mexico, down into Central America. They're the few that get in the US. This is to say the species and also down through the Andes. The typical marigold which we've which we think of is the African marigold, Tagetes erecta, is actually not from Africa. It's from Mexico. And a better name would be the Aztec marigold, sometimes called the American marigold but unfortunately, African marigold is in the literature. It's kind of like turkeys are from Mexico. They're not from Turkey. That confusion once it is sown, it often has a life of its own. So another close related species Tagetes Petula is typically called the French marigold, and that is not from France originally either, but evidently a lot of the breeding was done. Actually there are 50 species of Tagetes beyond the commonly grown ones. Another marigold, which is becoming more and more popular, is our hybrids derived from Tagetes tenuifolia these are called the Signet marigolds and they have smaller flowers. The leaves are divided into the usually have feathery lobes. And where I lived in South America, where this Tagetes tenuifolia was native, it's called anise decampo because the foliage has a licorice like flavor. And it was used for making teas. These Mexican species bloom at this time of year and this is the time of All Souls Day. They're used in celebrations and cemeteries in Mexico. It's interesting that in the native country it is used for that kind of a celebration. In other parts of the world, like India and Thailand and Ukraine, the marigold has become a symbol of the celebration. There is a movie about the Indian celebrations and the marigold itself is one of the main characters in those areas. It is become so popular that people think of it as a native plant, native to that area. But no,  it's from a Mexico. The marigolds are pollinated by butterflies, bumble bees and beetles. The flowers are used as a food colorant in some countries, and there are other species that I should mention. Tagetes lucida is sometimes called Mexican terragon and a tea. Traditional tea is made of it in Mexico called Betty home. It has a licorice like flavor and evidently has a non alkaloid hallucinogen is it has not been identified. I've never had an effect, but it's easier. For me it's been easier to grow than terragon. And which isn't the same botanical family, but it is not. It's not quite the same.

Farmer Fred  25:06

That plant of the Mexican marigold, isn't that a perennial in many zones?

Warren Roberts  25:11

They can be but if you have none of none of the marigolds are hardy to real strong frost. There is one called Tagetes lemmoni, the Copper Canyon Daisy or the mountain lemon.  The Daisy name for that mountain outside of Tucson is hearty, usually down to if you have snow, a light snow it will survive that although we probably be frozen back the Canyon Daisy is a magnificent cloud of orange flowers a little bit later  in the fall. It's an interesting genus, beautiful flowers. Now some people complain about the smell. Well, the foliage of marigolds, all of them are strong, although some marigolds have been bred to not have this characteristic smell, but there are some species, Tagetes elliptica and Tagetes minuta, where the plant is actually grown for that flavor. And it's an ingredient in in Peruvian cooking. Also associated areas like Ecuador and Bolivia and I like the flavor, I'll put it that way. It's delicious with oil potatoes as a sauce for guinea pig and things like that. Well I did live in Peru as well.

Farmer Fred  26:39

Next time I'm going to be putting a guinea pig on the old rotisserie, I'll remember that for sauce.

Warren Roberts  26:47

And the zone would be Tagetes minuta. Tagetes minuta is a weed in the southwest U.S., but there are substances produced by the roots of the plant that are important to nematodes. So it's another end some soil bacteria. In fact, it's not a good idea to plant marigolds with leguminous crops like beans, they get into a fight there, in the root zone. 

Farmer Fred  27:14

I have a question.  What does guinea pig tastes like?

Warren Roberts  27:18

oh, I would say chickens or rabbit, maybe more rabbit. Very sweet, succulent, and they're prepared so that you scalded it like you would a chicken to get the feathers off, in this case to get the fur off. And then the skin is when it's fried, it's very, very crisp. And there's a compliment in the Andes. I just know it in Spanish, where a young man will be very enamored with the young lady and he will say, "you're as delicious as the golden fried skin of a guinea pig". That's supposed to turn heads.

Farmer Fred  28:01

Yeah, that ranks right up there with a lyric from a Loretta Lynn song which in the lyric was, "Hey Loretta, I love you more than my Irish setter." 

Warren Roberts  28:15

Are we a marvelous species? Yes.

Farmer Fred  28:19

All right. Well, the marigold. it's easy to grow, it likes full sun, regular watering, it lasts until a good frost comes along.  It's a beautiful plant, very colorful used in a lot of ceremonies. The marigold, the Tagetes. And it's an interesting name. How many plants are named from the Etruscan language?

Warren Roberts  28:41

Well, this is the first one I've come across. But I bet there are more. You know,  the Latin language developed in that area.

Farmer Fred  28:49

That's interesting. Well, the marigold. Warren Roberts of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. Thanks for telling us about the plant of the week, the marigold.

Warren Roberts  28:59

 You're welcome.

Farmer Fred  29:06

Don't forget if you want to learn more about the topics covered on today's episode of Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, subscribe to the free Garden Basics newsletter on Substack. Details are in today's show notes. The Garden Basics podcast will be on its winter schedule from November through January. And that means there will only be one episode per week during that three month period, released every Friday. But because there's so much to talk about, there's a good chance those weekly episodes will be longer than 30 minutes. Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots. And the podcast is available for free wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving comments. We appreciate it.