 Hi there and welcome to the channel. So it's an exciting day here down in my growing room because it is time to start planting tomatoes indoors, getting them ready for the outdoor garden. So I think starting tomatoes indoors is one of my favorite indoor starts. I find that they are one of the easiest things to get growing indoors. So this year I am going to do things a little differently. First of all I'm going to try a different method of starting these tomatoes and this is something that I've seen down on a channel called Next Level Gardening. So Brian is the host of that channel. He is down in Southern California which is a very different growing zone than here on Saskatchewan prairies. I'm sure his zone must be around eight or nine. Of course here in Saskatchewan we are in zone three which is a very cold growing zone. But a lot of the methods that Brian shows on his channel work in various growing zones and I was really interested about this technique that he showed on how to start tomatoes and create a very strong tomato with very strong roots that hopefully will give you a better harvest at the end of the day. So that's one thing different that I'm going to be doing this year. Another thing that I'm going to try doing this year is starting less tomatoes. I always find that you know if I start them in smaller cells I'll have like six of one kind, six of another kind, six of another kind. Just because you're not sure which ones will germinate and then you have really good germination and they grow well and you just you know don't end up getting rid of any and you plant them all up into bigger containers and you know six to eight weeks later your whole countertop in the garage is covered with tomatoes plus all the other vegetables and flowers that I like to start indoors. So I've told myself this year that I'm going to limit the amount of each variety that I'm going to start but I do have seven different varieties that I want to try this year. So I'm going to be just starting two seeds of each variety in these red solo cups so that means I only have seven starts going here and my hope is that these tomato plants can stay in these red solo cups right from the time they sprout until they are ready to go out in the garden. So looking at it this way if all goes well and I get seven plants going this is the only space that they're going to take up. So getting back to this technique that Brian talks about on his channel it is all about starting your tomato in a solo cup like this or container similar to this size it could be like a four inch container and what he does is he only fills the container up about halfway, plants the seeds and lets the tomato germinate and grow and as it grows just to keep adding soil around the stem of the tomato. And the reason for that is because tomatoes as long as you bury their stem all those little tiny hairs that I will show you up close here in a minute will turn into roots. So the theory behind this is as the tomato grows we keep covering the stem it shoots out more roots so by the time this is ready to go into the ground you have a very solid root ball and a very strong plant and hopefully will have a very good harvest at the end of the season. So here on the Saskatchewan Prairies we have a very short outdoor growing season that is usually approximately 110 days from in between the two frost dates. So tomatoes are one of those things that you have to start indoors there's just no way you would ever be able to start them outdoors and I usually do them about six to eight weeks prior to the last frost date. Here our last frost date is about the third week of May and for tomatoes I personally usually wait a little bit longer than that last frost date and go with pretty much the first week of June. I've had a lot of experience with late frosts coming at the end of May early June. So I consider myself just a small scale gardener I don't grow a huge amount of any type of vegetable for the purpose of canning or saving it for the winter. Being that I work full time and have other hobbies that I enjoy doing I try not to grow too much of anything I want to be able to just enjoy it throughout the summer and into the fall and any tomatoes that I do end up with at the end of the season that doesn't look like we're going to be able to eat fresh you know I will do some freezing but for the most part I just like to grow different varieties. I like the cherry type tomatoes I like the beef steaks and I've been very lucky to get a whole bunch of different kinds of tomato seeds through a seed exchange here in Canada and I'm pretty excited to try all of these and see how they turn out and because we do have a short growing season here it's always good to try and find tomatoes that have a shorter growing period such as this one here this is called the rooster tomato but I received this from Dean Scott Birchwood Builders is his YouTube channel he's in Alberta he sent these to me they are a large meaty flavorful determinant tomato so when I look them up online they're kind of a bigger one it's a nice slicing tomato be great for sandwiches and these have a 65 days to maturity so what that means is when these get transplanted into the ground you should have tomatoes 65 days later so if I get these into the ground early June that means that I should have some tomatoes before the end of July. Hickory Croft Farms is another YouTube channel that I do a lot of seed exchanging with they are located in Ontario and they have sent me three different kinds of tomato seeds that I am excited to try this one's called the Palestinian tomato it has a longer maturity date so it says 85 to 100 days so that that is really pushing it for Saskatchewan so it will be interesting to see if I can get some of these these are also a beef steak tomato but they are an indeterminate variety which means that they will keep growing and producing all summer long until until they die or usually till frost comes. The other one that they gave me was a white Tomasol tomato which again it was a very interesting looking tomato to me it is also a indeterminate variety it has a long maturity date as well of 80 days so we will see how those go. I also got a bush beef steak determinant from Plowman's Backyard YouTube channel check it out so this is a determinant short season type tomato so I like that it's only 62 days to maturity so the determinant tomatoes will only grow so high usually about three or four feet tall they will bloom produce their fruit and then they're done. This is one I'm very excited about because I love sun gold cherry tomatoes and I got these also from Dean at Birchwood Builders he sent me some of those after I was asking for them on a seed exchange video they have a short growing season of 60 to 65 days and he wrote on here that they are yellow sweet juicy and you can't eat just one so looking forward to those this is from Heritage Harvest Seeds they are located in Manitoba and this is called a pink ping pong tomato so it is an indeterminate cherry tomato it's got a 75 day to maturity period so should see something from these you know early August. This one doesn't really qualify as a tomato but I'm gonna be planting it with my tomatoes anyway another one from Hickory Craw Farms it's Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries. These kind of interest me I've seen a lot of videos of people growing them I've seen a lot of mixed reviews from people as to whether they like them or not but just a very interesting looking plant that I'm gonna try growing and we will see how they go so these are 70 days to maturity from transplant so we will add this to my variety here today so I think I have a good variety I have a few determinant type I have a few that will be the larger beef steak kind of a tomato and I also have a couple of the cherry varieties so I'm very excited to get them planted here and show you my method that I'm gonna be following so I think because I'm only going to be starting one of each of these containers I'm going to be putting three seeds into each just to ensure that I have successful germination I'm trying to just plant them close to the center here because I know I'm only gonna be keeping one in here something that Brian also on his video that I was watching used instead of putting some more seed starting mix on the top of the soil he used vermiculite which I have been doing for my other indoor starts the vermiculite is supposed to help prevent damping off and fungus gnats getting into your soil here so with my seed starting mix here I also add boiling water to it to moisten the soil and to kind of give it a bit of extra sterilization to prevent fungus gnats in case there happens to be some eggs in the soil it's just a little extra measure I like to use just to help prevent the fungus gnats getting into your dirt in your house which is a can be a real pain so this is how it's gonna look after the initial planting so I have put three seeds in there put a light layer of vermiculite on the top with these red solo cups I've just taken scissors and made a few little slits at the bottom so that it has drainage and somewhere for the roots to go because I'm pretty sure by the time these are ready to go outdoors they're gonna have roots shooting out the bottom so here's what the beefsteak tomato looks like about I think it's been almost a month since I planted these so I have the cup filled halfway planted them up and now to take advantage of this special thing that tomatoes have you can see all those tiny little fibers that are on the stem of a tomato those will turn into roots if you cover them with soil so this is the technique that we are going to use today I'm going to remove those first two leaves and this one as well and this one here so it doesn't look like you're left with much but once we top it up with soil right up to here all these tiny little fibers that you can see are going to turn into roots and this will keep growing upwards so then by the time we have this in the garden this is going to be a really nice strong tomato plant so this is what he looks like once he's got another layer of soil he's still got a lot of nice leaves here growing and as I said this stem that we just covered up will shoot out a bunch more roots so I'm just going to put this back under the grow lights so one thing that I just got thinking about with these ground cherries is that they don't have the same special properties that the tomatoes have where their stems will shoot out roots if you bury them at least not that I read anywhere so I'm going to fill this container up all the way just put about four or five seeds I said I don't have a lot of knowledge of ground cherries just a few YouTube videos I watched I would love to hear anybody's comments on their experiences with these like I said I it seems like a really mixed reviews on whether people like them or not so to start these off I'm going to be using this heat mat it's not totally necessary to use one but if you have one it's a good way to help kind of jump start the germination I'm going to put these cups directly onto the mat for now and just keep the moist by spritzing the tops of them and I do have a container already to put these into once they get sprouting and I have them under the lights that I can bottom water them directly into this tray so I'm not going to have a grow light going on them right now until they germinate and if you have some kind of a dome type thing that you can use I always just use a plastic bag because it's easy to maneuver and fit over any sizes of cups that I am working on here so I'm just going to keep the plastic on here till I start seeing germination which according to most of these packages is within seven to ten days I have found with tomatoes that I've growing indoors that they do germinate a lot quicker than that sometimes within four days I see germination so once I have germination happening on all of these I will take off the plastic and turn on the grow light maybe move them up a little bit closer so we'll just keep monitoring that so that's pretty much all there is to starting tomatoes indoors and I will be starting a lot more things over the next few weeks as we get closer to that last last frost date so I hope you will keep watching if you haven't already done so please hit subscribe and leave a comment I will be doing all sorts of updates on everything that I've started so far and I hope that you will just keep following along with me on my channel thank you for watching and we'll see you on the next one