Xeramtheum said:They are specialized cartons for organic eggs. When I'm not using them for winter sowing I cut the flat top off and use it as a drip tray. I'm sure the flat top is just there so you can stack them.

I love these egg cartons... but do you find they have enough depth for the soil?
I usually find anything under 2" -- they dry out so quickly.

an aside.... one time i used egg shells for indoor sowing of tomato seeds... that was a neat experiment.

I always keep my mister handy and always transplant seedlings into bigger pots when I see indications of true leaves emerging.

It seems from the few times I have tried tomato seeds in shallow containers like egg cartons, they have had a better germination rate. That is why I intentionally sowed my first crop of tomato seeds yesterday in larger deeper containers, but less than half filled with soil. The idea is to get them to germinate fast , then slowly add soil around them as they grow. This should help avoid the fast drying out. I still plan on having to transplant them at least twice before going into the garden, tomatoes seem to benefit from that. I have high hopes for this, but it may be a total flop.I have my tomato containers on top of the freezer covered with a piece of glass.Just started them yesterday.
The only reason I can attribute to the better germination in shallow soil is heat, I think with a low heat like on the top of my freezer it heats up a shallow depth of soil better, where as a deep soil level never gets warm enough, just my guess.

when i did the tomatoes in egg shells, as soon as they were big enough, i put them in bigger pots, shell and all. think I transplanted them twice before putting them in the earth boxes. BUT I do believe all but 1 seed germinated. I was giving away plants.

Larry, I've read before that tomatoes benefit from potting up -- but I wonder if it isn't more because they get planted more deeply each time and get more of a root structure, rather than the actual act of being transplanted. So, what I'm thinking is, it may be every bit as beneficial - and maybe more, since they wouldn't be getting disturbed - just to start them in a larger pot with just a shallow layer of soil, then keep adding more soil as the plant grows, as you mentioned. I don't really have room to do that with all my tomatoes because I start them and a lot of other stuff under lights in the house and can't move them out to the GH until about mid April, so I need to use small containers (6-packs) for the seed starting and then move them into bigger pots later on, but I think I'll experiment with a few to see what happens. LOL, yours should be about ready to plant outside when I'm just starting my seeds !

Fun experiment with the egg shell planters, Terese.

I thought I read that just putting the soil around them as they grew was not as beneficial as the transplanting. I think maybe it was the actual process of disturbing the roots that caused them to produce more roots. I'll have to research that again, but that is the main reason I have made plans to actually transplant mine a few times, maybe I need to review that and refresh my memory. It is a bad thing to make planting and growing decisions on faintly remembered "facts" I guess. I guess I also need to clarify "larger containers" they aren't all that large, they are just large compared to the small capacity of an egg carton crevice. Anyone here recall reading transplanting helps establish a better root system on tomatoes?

http://www.gardenbetty.com/201...
I found this article which is typical of the articles I based my transplanting theory on. Now reading this after reading the post by Sandy makes me realize that the articles I read along with this one might not be saying what I interpreted it to say, but it might.
This article states that a tomato has a vigorous tap root that can grow up to an inch per day, I have never noticed a tomato having a vigorous tap root, but mostly lots of shallow "feeder roots"? Now for sure if the tap root were growing on a tomato an inch per day, if started in a large pot with shallow soil, building up the soil around the plant would not do much good for the tap root which would have reached the bottom of the container in a short period of time, but if it just has a lot of tiny feeder roots which develop from higher up than the previous roots as the soil is added then the tomato should benefit just as much from that. Open for new insight and feedback. When does a tomato outgrow the seed forum?

I used to start tomatoe plants in egg shell halves.
As I remember, it worked fine. It was to increase calcium in soil.
Transplanting, and filling in around the stems will promote the root growth.

I have about 20 different seeds outside in vermiculite or seed starting mix in various containers, all are taped up with duct tape. I will be going away for a few days so hope they do their thing; this may be the last of the cold weather so I didn't want to wait til February. Don't ask me what I planted, I did it in a frenzy between work in spare moments. There is a master list in my gardening box but for now I will just trust Mother Nature to take over.

Larry, I'm pretty sure that tomatoes don't have a "taproot." Carrots are a taproot. Tomatoes don't grow roots like a carrot. There's always a possibility that I'm mistaken about this, but I don't think so.

Anyway, I still really don't know about planting the tomatoes and then just adding dirt as they grow, as opposed to transplanting to a new pot with more dirt. I do know that when I transplant I plant the seedlings deeper than they were growing and roots form all along the submerged stem, and when I plant them out in the garden I also plant them deeper. Anything under the soil grows roots, and I don't think the stem needs to be injured in any way for that to occur. Those tomato stems just WANT to grow roots, in fact there are often "vestigial" roots that start forming along the stem even above ground.

I'm looking forward to trying this out ...

more to the point, wintersowing to me means seeding outdoors in winter to cold treat or encourage vigor. I sow tomatoes indoors in winter, did somebody sow outdoors? why?

SCButtercup said:more to the point, wintersowing to me means seeding outdoors in winter to cold treat or encourage vigor. I sow tomatoes indoors in winter, did somebody sow outdoors? why?

LOL, Judy -- was this a reference to the "tomato taproot" thing? If so, no, not about WS tomatoes, more of a question of whether tomato seedlings actually benefit from the physical process of "potting up" or if the same benefit would come from starting the seeds in a shallow layer of soil in a deeper pot, then adding soil as the plant grows, to encourage a large root system. Although, I guess I have heard of people WS tomato seeds... (and if you were asking about a different post entirely, sorry for further confusing things! )

I wintersowed my tomatoes for years. However, in a very cold year, germination can be very late here. Most years, and in many garden zones, it works great.

Karen

I've w/s my tomatoes for the last 3 years. Just not enough room inside.

Have any of you used newspaper pots for wintersowing? I am going to try it for some of my seeds.

http://www.gardenbetty.com/201...

I don't think it would be a good idea considering how long they would be sitting around in cold, damp conditions. I'm thinking they would disintegrate after a month or so.

Thanks Anne. I know that they break down, but I wasn't sure how fast it would be. I think I'll still try a few, just to see what happens.

Always worth an experiment! Please let us know how it goes.

I tried a few one year. They dried out terribly fast in dry weather, turned moldy and fell apart in wet weather. I stick to milk jugs now.

Karen