Forty tomato seedlings, two shop lights and one wire shelf. That was the puzzle I spent spring break solving, mostly in the basement, mostly in an old T-shirt with potting mix down the front.
I sowed the tomatoes on March 23 in a 48-cell tray: six cells each of Cherokee Purple, San Marzano, Amish Paste, Early Girl, Sungold, Juliet, Matt's Wild Cherry and Black Cherry. Forty-five came up. By the start of break most had two or three sets of true leaves, and roots were poking out the bottoms of the cells, which is their way of saying they need more room. On Monday morning I picked the best 40 and got to work.
Why forty when I need twelve
Only twelve of these will stay with us: eight in the east bed and four cherry tomatoes in buckets on the porch. I know how that sounds. Here's my reasoning. Some seedlings always fail. Hardening off on our porch means wind and hot afternoon sun, and I'd rather have spares than drive around in May hunting for a Cherokee Purple. And people ask. By April, half the teachers at my school know there's a tomato nursery in my basement.
The other honest reason is that I can't bring myself to thin a healthy seedling. I've tried. I stand there with the scissors and end up potting it up anyway.
Yogurt cups and milk cartons
All winter I saved containers in a trash bag at the bottom of the basement stairs: quart yogurt tubs, because Mateo eats yogurt like it's his job, and half-gallon milk cartons, which I cut down to about five inches tall with a bread knife. On Monday I counted 23 tubs and 19 cartons, which was just enough. Nate drilled three drainage holes in the bottom of each with a quarter-inch bit while I rinsed. It took us about forty minutes and cost nothing.
For the mix, I used fresh Pro-Mix with a scoop of compost stirred into the bucket. Tomatoes grow roots along any part of the stem that's buried, so I planted each seedling deep, right up to its first set of true leaves, with the fuzzy stem disappearing into the mix. More roots now means sturdier plants in May. Each cup got a wooden craft-stick label from the art room's endless supply, written in pencil, because marker fades under the lights.
The seedlings looked better within a day. Leaves that had started to go a little pale in the crowded cells turned dark again, that deep blue-green of a tomato that's finally comfortable.
The shelf-space puzzle
Here's what I didn't plan for. In the cell tray, 48 tomatoes fit in one tray on one shelf. In cups, 40 tomatoes take more than twice that floor space. My wire shelf has four tiers but only two lights, so only two tiers are really usable. The pepper tray still occupied part of one of them. The peppers came up slow and uneven this year, with a few cells still empty after five weeks, and they're too small to move.
So I did porch math in the basement. The onion flats moved out to the porch on Monday to start getting used to the outdoors, since onions shrug off chilly nights, and that freed up most of a tier. On the warm afternoons this week, the biggest tomatoes went outside too, into the shady end of the porch by the screen door, and came back in before dinner. Think of it as a preview of hardening off, which starts for real in May. The ten promised to other people moved to the kitchen windowsill, where Pim has been told in no uncertain terms that they are not cat grass.
It worked, mostly. On Wednesday I tipped a tray on the basement stairs, and one Black Cherry and one Juliet lost their labels in the spill. Both are now labeled "mystery cherry," and we'll find out which is which in July.
Where the extras go
Of the 28 extras, fourteen go to the teachers' lounge on Monday with a sign-up sheet. Sal and Joanne next door get four. My parents get four, which ride down to Yonkers with us tomorrow for Easter dinner. Two are going across the street to Owen's family. I'm keeping the last four as insurance until our own plants are in the ground on May 17.
Into the notebook: two lights are not enough once the tomatoes are potted up. I've been suspecting it for two springs, and this week proved it.
