How to temper tomato seedlings at home?

Some varieties of tomatoes during the harvest period show the best results if grown from seedlings.However, to get healthy bushes with lots of fruits, you need to know how to harden tomato seedlings at home.

This process takes a lot of time, but gradually the plant adapted to natural conditions will certainly please with weighty and tasty tomatoes.

In tomato sprouts that have passed the hardening stage, there is much more strength and energy for fruiting. The amount of sugar in their stems and leaves is many times greater than in plants grown without a hardening process. Also the structure of fabrics differs. Hardened tomatoes have a thicker layer of the epidermis, thanks to which such representatives of the flora easily withstand temperature surges and wind gusts. As a result, from hardened tomatoes, you can get a large and better crop.

This feature is explained quite simply. When transplanting any plants gets a lot of stress: a new soil, a different temperature, light, new living conditions, with which the plant's root system needs to get along.

In an enclosed space, seedlings grow in a stable environment, not feeling any negative moments awaiting it in the open field: sharp temperature fluctuations, drafts, etc. And if you deprive the tomatoes of their usual habitat and land on the bed, you can provoke the strongest stress.

Hardening allows you to protect vegetables from any adverse factors for its formation and growth. After all, the essence of this process is to slowly train the vegetation to be in open space.

Experts gardeners also noticed that during the quenching period, the root system begins to grow rapidly in tomatoes, and by the time it is planted, the roots become strong, very powerful and large, and the plants themselves, although they are slowing down in growth, become obese. This development occurs because, as a result of quenching, tomatoes “turn on” a protective function — double the thickness of the stem and accumulate large amounts of sucrose in the green mass.

At the time when you can begin to carry out quenching, as a rule, indicate the plants themselves. Signs of this are:

• Leaf color. Dark green leaves, sometimes with a violet shade - the first sign that the tomato is ripe for the next stage of its development. If the sheets have white or spots of a different color, the seedlings cannot be hardened.
• The appearance of the trunk. Sagging stem indicates that the vegetable is weak and can not be subjected to further shocks. It should be a bright green color and only straight.
• Root system It is desirable to have a gummy structure. If it is healthy and strong, the plant will certainly take root and give good shoots.
• Leaf condition. Leaf plate should be well developed, without any traces of disease.

Hardening tomato sprouts at home is a combination of various activities related to the preparation of vegetable seedlings for growing conditions after their transplantation into unprotected soil. Such adaptation will allow to avoid in the future a number of problems during the growing season of vegetable crops.

In the first days you need to hide the plants from the direct rays of the sun (clean up in the shade or make a canopy), gradually accustoming them to the sunlight. The residence time of the plants in the new place must be increased daily by several minutes, bringing up to 2-3 hours. At the same time, it is also necessary to bring out seedlings to the light, but this is not to be done sharply.

If the preparation is done according to the rules, tomatoes can survive even the most unpredictable whims of the weather, for example, lowering the temperature to -5 degrees. According to experienced vegetable growers, hardened tomatoes are not only more resistant to negative environmental factors, but their taste is much higher than that of plants grown without hardening.

If the cultivation of seedlings occurs in a greenhouse or in a greenhouse, hardening can be called ventilation of the room by opening the door. If tomatoes are grown on a closed balcony or loggia, in which environmental conditions differ from the outside, plants should also be accustomed to planting unprotected soil before planting, hardening the tomatoes for several days at the site where they will be before harvest.

Hardening in closed ground (greenhouses, greenhouses, rain) should take place in conditions identical to those in open ground. In the afternoon, the greenhouse is opened for airing, and this is quite enough for the root system to harden. You also need to drastically reduce watering, the amount of feed additives. A week before planting tomatoes, watering should be completely stopped, while watching that the soil does not turn into a cracker. This method of growing will increase the resistance of vegetable crops to low temperatures and drought period.

Experienced vegetable growers offer different ways to temper tomato seedlings. Among them:

• Hardening temperature. Seedlings are placed in a cold room with a temperature close to 0 degrees, exactly 1 hour. After 5 days, the procedure is repeated again, increasing the time spent in the cold to 3-4 hours. 4 days before the planting of tomatoes, the actions are repeated for the last time with a decrease in temperature to -2, maintaining the seedlings in such conditions for 3-4 hours.
• Hardening by the sun. After hardening the seedlings with a short dry period, you can accustom it to the sun's rays. For tomatoes, previously grown in the shade, this will be a real stress, so in this situation it is important to act as carefully as possible. Experts advise starting such a procedure in the evening or morning hours. In the sun itself, that is, at noon, tomato seedlings cannot be carried out in the sun, such a thoughtless act will destroy all the plants. The first time you need to keep the bushes on the street for about 15-20 minutes, with a gradual lengthening of the period of being in a new environment.

Thanks to such activities, plants adapt more quickly after disembarking to a permanent place. Do not be upset if the bushes lose some of the green mass, this is quite a natural process, and the losses will most likely be insignificant. If, before planting, the tomato was not hardened by the sun, it will immediately get burned and become sluggish and unviable.

The entire period of hardening involves temperature drops. The following indicators are considered optimal:

• in the afternoon from + 16 to + 20 degrees;
• at night from + 8 to + 15 degrees.

When tomatoes are in the hardening stage, drafts should not be allowed. Hardening should take place gradually, without sharp drops / increases in temperature and jumps in the natural light flux. In the case when the ground is too dry, before removing the plants, the soil is moistened with warm water, otherwise the seedlings will wither, especially if it is hot outside. If there is a period when the temperature drops sharply at night, down to minus indicators, all plantings should be hidden in a warm room.

Everyone decides for himself whether to temper seedlings or not, but hardened plants and vegetables that have not undergone these manipulations are significantly different from each other. In hardened tomatoes, the color of the stem and leaves is saturated green, and the unhardened seedlings have a dull, dull emerald color. Also, representatives of the first category on the leaves and trunks have fluffy villi, which serve as additional protection for the plant from external factors of bad weather.

Stems in hardened seedlings are powerful, do not bend under the weight of the fruit and the influence of gusting wind.

Other secrets of hardening seedlings of tomatoes, you will learn from the following video.