Growing a tomato plant inside my house-- help me make this successful

[bachbach1]

I have grown tomato plants indoors for many years, you can easily keep them alive for years. Indoors they are no longer an anual that dies in the fall. Hydroponics works good, but just plain soil is good too, they love compost. The #1 thing I will stress, far beyond any other issue is they need tons of light to produce even a fairly decent number of tomatoes. Tomato plants HAVE to have enormous amounts of light. They also produce a lot of oxygen, that is good for you indoors. The plants need to be where light from a large window. can shine on them. One window can equal thousands of watts of grow lights if it is a sunny window. It isn't hard to grow them indoors, any species, I have some 5 year old indoor tomato plants and some 3 year old banana pepper plants in my sun room too. What is hard is to give them enough light to produce a reasonable amount of fruit.

 

[Arielle]

My best windows are my north windows, because the southern ones are shaded by the oaks/ maples. apsens.

Is temperature important?? THe best room with lots of light from the north , so it is indirect light, is a cool room all year round. Ideal temp? Or minimum low??

Perhaps a white box with a glass front facing the window? White interior to reflect he light over and over again with grow lights too.

Are the growlights for growing a different wave length than for fuiting??




UPdate-- 5 seeds are in a soildless mix in a 5 x 5 ish mushroom container, with a few hole in the bottom. THat is set into a larger container to catch the drainage. ANd allis in a plasatic bag , shut for now as it was drying out and thought it was near the ideal mostire level. I think the seeds will need a few days to absorb the moisture and get activated. Need to find the heat pad for seedlings.

 

[bachbach1]

Tomato plants are a lot more productive when it is warm to hot, they sense winter coming on when it is too cool, and reduce growth/productivity. It is like they are programmed to die in the frost, so they almost give up. So as far as that goes if it is cool and they slow down, they will stay alive unless it freezes.

Light, is a tough subject to understand if you haven't dealt with it before. There are plants that grow good indoors, like African violets, and they love grow lights. On the same token, an African violet will die if it is exposed to full sun for a few hours. So some plants are very different in their light requirements. Indoors with a 100 watt bulb running looks bright to people, but it is like a night sky lit by a full moon for a tomato as far as actually producing fruit. Outside on a sunny day there is probably 20 times the light there is in a medium sized white room with a couple of 100 watt bulbs going. The human eye isn't good at detecting that, because the iris in out eyes adjusts to brighter light. Why so much light, the plants use it through photosynthesis to create more plant tissue, which is growth, and fruit. Do every thing you can to get the plants as much light as you can, then only time will tell if you had enough light.

 

[Arielle]

Good explanation. I have a pretty good understanding of plants so all that wonderful info made sense.

A very good design would include a low e double pane window glass on the side of the growing box facing the window. Or at least a single pane. I looked at poly material and it is mostly opaque ish and double , for outdoor use. WIll look agin for a clear plastic.

Reflecting all the light possible might be helpful, I wonder which reflects more light, white or foil ?ANd I have two grow lights, maybe 3.

IF anyone knows a lighting schedule. I expect "night" is important as other processes get going that aren't functioning during the daylight hours-- and that is all I can remember on that.


Update-- put the mini green house on the TV-- the old style-- makes lots of heat.

 

[bachbach1]

Plants tomato especially do love the heat, silver reflects a lot more heat than white, probably 200% more. Aluminum foil shiny side out glued with Elmers glue to sheets of the blue foam insulation sold at Home improvement stores help to recycle light. The light can be reflected until absorbed. Ideally you want the light to bounce around and get reflected until the plant absorbs as much as possible. That is why white, or sliver is good it reflects the light to help it get absorbed by the plants. If you put the plants in the window, and place a sheet of the blue Styrofoam coated with aluminum foil behind the plants where the sunlight reflects back, it increase available light and plant growth.

 

[Arielle]

I can add grow lights to extend the day light hours. Sun up is 7 :00am to 4:30 here. Pretty short.

THe longest summer day is-- hmmm, about 5:30-8:45 = 15.75 hours.

 

[bachbach1]

You can keep them under constant light, most pro growers keep them under light for 18 hours a day for maximum production. They also need help pollinating. Each little yellow flower has everything it needs internally, but needs wind or vibration, like from a bees wings for the pollination. If you touch the stem gently near each group of flowers every few days with a running electric tooth brush, it will do the job perfectly. Alternatively a fan moved around to produce some movement will do the job too. Most people just use a fan.

 

[Smithyard Farm]

Hi Arielle!

the days stated on the pak typically represent the days from germination (sprouting) to fruit (when you can eat it....) Although some are from transplanting.... very helpful aren't I???

still looking into starting some veggies inside myself. I usually plant seeds right in the ground, and buy tomato plants.... but trying to extend my growing season a little bit....

 

[bachbach1]

Indoors, my tomato babies are up. They are going nuts. They are a strain of brilliant purple tomatoes from Tibet, they are about the size of a plum. I sell these plants at local farmers markets, I always start them a little early.

 

[Arielle]

bach bach-- thanks for the tip on pollination-- whats the point of growing a plant if I forget the pollination step!! Great ideas the fans and electric toothbrush; DH used a paintbrush, the tiny ones for plastic model painting. THe electric toothbrush would be faster.