Caring for tomato seedlings in open ground after planting

The first two weeks after planting in open ground, tomato seedlings will need careful care. During this period, the seedlings will take root and adapt to new growing conditions. If they are given due attention and properly cared for, tomatoes will soon begin to grow and develop.

You can learn how to properly plant tomato seedlings in a greenhouse and open ground if you follow the highlighted links.

Watering tomato seedlings in open ground after planting

The frequency and abundance of watering tomato seedlings in the first two weeks after planting in open ground depends on weather conditions. If the weather is dry and hot, it is necessary to monitor the soil moisture for 7-10 days so that it does not dry out. Therefore, you may need to water the seedlings daily. At the same time, the soil should not be too wet all the time, otherwise the rooting process will be worse and the roots that have not yet become strong may begin to rot.

How do you know when it’s time to water recently planted tomato seedlings? To do this, you need to collect soil from the depths of the hole and compress it. If there is a lump in your hand, then it is too early to water the plants, and if the soil has crumbled, it needs to be moistened.

This watering regime is maintained until budding, after which the frequency of watering is reduced and the volume of water is increased.

Tomatoes at any stage of development should be watered with warm water, standing in a barrel. Do not use cold water from a hose. Cooled roots will stop absorbing nutrients and moisture, causing the plant itself to suffer.

When watering, you need to make sure that water does not get on the foliage.

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Some features

Options for planting tomatoes.
Organizing proper nutrition for tomatoes, when applying nitrogen fertilizers, can significantly increase the yield. In this case, it is very important to comply with the norm, since excess nitrogen at a certain stage provokes increased growth of leaves and stems, while the fruits remain very small and weak. The fact that the plant has been improperly fertilized can be guessed by changes in the flowers; the petals become larger in size, while the stamen cone, on the contrary, remains very small.

Mistakes when feeding very often lead to a decrease in yield, especially if there is extreme heat. With a lack of carbon nutrition, plants are weakened and unstable even to one-time changes in temperature. For this reason, greenhouse air should be saturated with carbon. How to do it? A container is placed on the territory of the greenhouse, which should be filled halfway with manure or grass, and then topped up with water. This is especially important if the soil in the greenhouse is not sufficiently fertilized.

Ventilation of the greenhouse

In warm sunny weather in open ground, remove the cover from the tomatoes. Daily ventilation is necessary to ensure that there is no high air humidity under the shelter, at which fungal diseases readily develop.

In the greenhouse, the air temperature during the day should be from +16 to +26 degrees, and at night - from +15 degrees. Therefore, if the sun is shining and it’s hot outside, the plants must be ventilated. Too high temperatures negatively affect their development.

Types of fertilizing

Tomatoes in a greenhouse should receive the full range of macro- and microelements. Tomato supplements may contain:

minerals;
organic fertilizers;
combined mixtures.

A popular organic fertilizer is fresh manure. It is placed in the greenhouse in advance in the fall, and the fertilizer rots over the winter. Since manure supplies tomatoes only with nitrogen, it is recommended to add superphosphate or phosphate rock at the same time.

Compost is another organic fertilizer that can be prepared in advance. Compost, like manure, is used to fertilize the beds in the fall, preparing them for further planting of tomatoes.

Ash is an excellent source of phosphorus and potassium; after adding it to the soil, fertilizing with mineral mixtures may no longer be necessary.

In addition to superphosphate, mineral fertilizers also include potassium magnesium, which supplies tomatoes with potassium and magnesium, as well as complex phosphorus-potassium fertilizers.

Many manufacturers produce special fertilizers for tomatoes. Among the most popular are drugs from Agricola, Fasco, Gumi-Omi, and Gera.

Feeding tomatoes after planting

The first feeding of tomato seedlings in open ground is carried out 10-14 days after planting. Tomatoes are fed with a mixture of organic and mineral fertilizers, which consists of superphosphate and mullein. First, the slurry is diluted in water (1:10), after which phosphorus fertilizer is added to it. For 10 liters of mullein you will need 20 grams of superphosphate. This amount of solution will be enough to feed 10 tomato bushes.

Instead of superphosphate, you can use Nitrophoska fertilizer, which contains three elements important for the development of seedlings - potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen. For 10 liters of mullein you will need 1 tablespoon of nitrophoska.

Water the seedlings with a fertilizer solution over damp soil, otherwise you can burn the roots.

The top of the stem has become thinner

If after planting it becomes noticeable that the top of the stem has become thinner compared to its entire length, then this indicates a lack of nutrients.

Before a plant begins to bear fruit, it needs to have a well-developed above-ground part. Only in this case will tomatoes be able to reveal their full potential.

It is important to give such tomatoes nitrogen-calcium fertilizer. For example, using calcium nitrate. The combination of these two elements can give a good impetus to the development of the leafy stem mass.

If there are visible signs of nitrogen deficiency, one of the best natural fertilizers is herbal infusion.

To prepare a herbal infusion, 2/3 of any container is filled with herbs. Fill with water. Leave for at least 5-7 days. For greater effect, 2-3 weeks.

Adding sugar, yeast and lactic acid products to the herbal infusion reduces its effectiveness.

It is also useful to feed weak tomatoes by leaf feeding. To do this, it is better to choose a complex microelement preparation, the obligatory components of which are calcium and boron. Calcium will help prevent blossom end rot for plants. And boron will give impetus to flowering and fruit set.

To enrich the soil with microelements, you can use an infusion
of onion peels. To prepare it, 1-2 handfuls of husks need to be poured with 500 ml of warm water and left for 24 hours. A small amount of infusion can be used with each watering.

Tillage and hilling

After watering or rain, the soil around the tomato seedlings in open ground is cleared of weeds and loosened to a depth of about 12 cm. This procedure will allow air to penetrate to the roots, which will have a beneficial effect on the development of tomatoes.

As soon as new adventitious roots appear on the main stem, the tomatoes are earthed up. After this, new roots will begin to develop and provide additional nutrition to the plants.

To make it easier to care for tomatoes in the open ground, after planting the seedlings, the row spacing in the garden bed can be mulched with straw, rotted sawdust or mowed green manure grasses. Mulch will prevent the rapid evaporation of moisture from the soil and will inhibit the growth of weeds. As a result, tomatoes will need to be watered less often, and weeding may not be necessary at all.

A few words about beneficial properties

South America is considered to be the birthplace of this vegetable. To this day, many wild tomato species have survived in those places. In Russia, tomatoes became known only in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Due to its many beneficial qualities, this culture is considered one of the most beneficial for the human body. The vegetable contains a wide variety of vitamins and microelements:

Folic acid;
Nicotinic acid;
Starch;
Elements iron and iodine;
Vitamins of groups B and C and others.

However, among all these elements, lycopene provides the greatest benefit. This antioxidant takes an active part in the destruction of cancer cells. It is because of the presence of this substance in tomatoes that they have a red color.

In addition to the usual consumption, these vegetables are also used to treat certain diseases. For example, using tomato juice, you can get rid of constipation by drinking it every day after meals.

The course of such therapy should continue for at least two weeks. They also help well with atherosclerosis. People with this disease are advised to add tomatoes to their diet daily (the more, the better).

In addition to all of the above, cosmetologists have also found use for tomatoes. Tomato juice is used as a tonic face mask. The mixture is applied to clean skin for 15-20 minutes and then washed off with water.

Formation of tomatoes in open ground

In open ground garden beds, tomatoes are best grown in a single stem, but in warmer regions the plants can be grown in multiple stems. Side shoots should be removed immediately after they grow to 5-7 cm.

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The first planting of tomatoes is carried out three weeks after planting the seedlings in the beds. In the future, the stepchildren are removed no more than once every 10 days.

If you grow climbing tomato varieties in a greenhouse, you should also tear off their lower leaves, which will interfere with the flow of air and light to the plants and can also cause fungal diseases.

Droopy bush with yellow and purple leaves

If the seedlings stop growing after planting, the leaves turn yellow, and they wither, you cannot feed them. Such plants are in a state of stress and are not able to absorb substances introduced from the outside.

To help tomatoes take root and begin to grow, substances that can increase their resistance to external negative environmental influences - adaptogens - can help.

These can be special industrial preparations or natural products containing substances that increase the performance of plants.

When tomatoes are exposed to unfavorable environmental factors (cold nights, high humidity, lack of light, etc.), ordinary baker's yeast and tomato paste can help them take root and adapt to new conditions.

To prepare a healing drink, 3 tbsp. Tomato paste (without sugar, salt and preservatives) is dissolved in 500 ml of warm water. 70 g of dry yeast is also added there.
Shake and leave for 15 minutes. The resulting solution is diluted with 10 liters of water. Apply 1.5-2 liters of liquid under each bush.

Such feeding can help the recovery of both newly transplanted plants and sick ones affected by pests, cold, etc.

Succinic acid can also help plants take root better. To do this, 2 g of acid must be dissolved in 10 liters of water. Water each bush with 0.5 liters of liquid. Repeat the procedure after 10 days.

In order to make nutrients more accessible to tomatoes, during planting and in the next few weeks they can be given a maintenance drink of 10 liters of water and 2 g (at the tip of a teaspoon) of caustic potassium or caustic soda. Under each bush you need to add 0.5 liquid.

This amount of caustic potassium has a slight alkalizing effect on the soil in the root growth zone and is not capable of harming the tomatoes.

Pipe cleaners can be used as a source of potassium hydroxide.

To heal the roots and prevent fungal diseases, tomatoes can also be spilled or sprinkled with a solution of 1 tbsp. sorbitol/10 l of water. It is recommended to repeat the procedure after 5-7 days.

Sorbitol is able to block the enzyme through which
phytopathogens penetrate plant tissue.

Application of foliar fertilizers

Foliar feeding is often used in emergency cases when plants show signs of deficiency of certain microelements. It is this method that allows you to quickly saturate tomatoes with the necessary substances. Changes in the appearance of plants can be observed within a few hours.

Advantages of foliar feeding:

accelerated transport of nutrients;
higher percentage of absorption of nutrients compared to root feeding;
promoting active growth of leaf mass;
increasing endurance in general, strengthening resistance to various diseases;
increase in the number of flowers and ovaries;
acceleration of fruit ripening processes and improvement of their taste;
increase in yield by 15-20%;
strengthening weakened plants.

Among the shortcomings, one can note only a limited number of simultaneously introduced elements. The fact is that increasing the concentration of the spraying solution will lead to burns of the leaves, so reduced dosages are used for foliar feeding.

This method is recommended to be used:

with high acidity of the soil, when plants cannot normally absorb potassium, calcium and phosphorus from the soil;
in order to give tomatoes an element that they are clearly lacking;
this method of fertilizing is actively used during the budding period;
with excessive soil moisture;
in cases where plant roots are mechanically damaged or weakened by pest attacks.

The procedure is carried out in the absence of sun - in the evening or in cloudy weather. Leaves should be sprayed from all sides. Processing of bushes begins from the top, slowly moving down. In hot weather, it is recommended to spray at dawn, when the plants eagerly absorb any moisture.

For tomatoes, it is recommended to carry out at least two foliar feedings per season - during the period of active growth and during the formation of the ovary.