Growing tomatoes at home is more fun than troublesome. Of course, if you do not turn the apartment into a garden. And do not forget that it is intended for human life, and not for growing vegetables. Tomatoes on the windowsill should be neat, healthy, beautiful, pleasing to the eye and not spoil the interior. In general, perform the functions of indoor flowers. And the fact that the culture produces edible fruits is only a pleasant addition to the decorative functions.
What tomatoes can be grown on the windowsill
Before you grow tomatoes on the windowsill, you should decide on the variety. You can’t just choose the undersized cultivar you like, put it in a pot, put it on the window, and wait for a big harvest.
Growing tomatoes at home to produce fruits should be done on a balcony or loggia in the summer. Here you can really pick up a low-growing variety, take larger pots, arrange and hang in a flower pot so that everyone has enough sun, and provide the family with vegetables for fresh consumption.
Ornamental tomatoes should be grown in the apartment. Potted varieties should have the following qualities:
- The main requirement for tomatoes for the windowsill is decorative.
- Bushes up to 50 cm high with very short internodes, standard. It is even better to look for varieties up to 30 cm in size. The loss of 1-2 leaves should not affect the appearance, which cannot be achieved with high growth and a sparse tomato crown.
- Resistance to pests and diseases. It is very inconvenient to process tomatoes on the windowsill, especially in winter.
- The description of the variety must necessarily indicate that it is suitable for growing in a pot culture. Ordinary tomatoes in the open field or greenhouse need about 20 liters of land for normal life. No one will put such containers on the windowsill. Balcony varieties require a minimum of 5-7 liters of soil. Real indoor tomatoes can develop in pots with a capacity of 3 liters, and with good regular care – 2 liters.
When buying tomato seeds for growing on windowsills, you need to pay attention to the manufacturer’s recommendations. The minimum volume of soil mixture should be indicated on the pack. You can not plant tomatoes in a smaller pot. They need to be fed hard anyway. When placed in overly cramped containers, it will be necessary to fertilize the culture so often that the fruits become an unusable decoration.
Varieties of tomatoes for indoor cultivation
It is recommended to grow early dwarf varieties of indoor tomatoes on window sills. The height of an adult bush – the smaller, the better.
Ampel varieties of tomatoes are not considered here. Hanging lashes on the windowsill will not receive enough light. It is better to hang them in special baskets.
Bonsai
The variety is designed specifically for growing on windowsills. Forms a squat branched bush up to 20-30 cm high, really similar to bonsai.
The fruits are round, red, weighing up to 25 g. They cover the plant abundantly, about 1 kg can be harvested per season.
Balcony Red and Yelow F1
Tomato for planting in pots and containers. Grows well on windowsills. The bush is beautiful, up to 45 cm high.
Fruits with a rich aroma and taste can be red or yellow, weighing 15-20 g. The disadvantage is that it requires a pot of at least 5 liters.
Room Surprise
A standard tomato that grows well on windowsills. Bush height 40-50, with strong thick shoots.
The fruits are collected in brushes, oval, red, weighing 20-30 g, very tasty. Requires intense lighting.
Mikron NK
A real dwarf 10-15 cm high. Great for window sills. One of the most light-demanding varieties, recommended for winter cultivation.
The fruits are collected in numerous brushes, they can be red or yellow. The weight of tomatoes is 10-12 g. It is impossible to eat from a couple of bushes, but they will decorate the interior and entertain the children.
Pinocchio
One of the best varieties of tomatoes for growing on windowsills. The bush is neat, with dense beautiful foliage, up to 30 cm high.
The fruits are round, red, weighing 20 g each. It can produce 1-1,5 kg of tomatoes per season.
Pygmy
The bush reaches only 30 cm. Feels good on the windowsills in winter. One of the varieties undemanding to lighting, a certain amount of fruit will give even in a short day.
Tomatoes are round, red, 25 g each.
Window Yellow
A new variety that forms a standard bush 25 cm high. Fruits abundantly. Recommended for winter planting when grown on a windowsill.
Yellow tomatoes are round, weighing up to 30 g, collected in clusters.
Ruby Red
A compact variety specially designed for planting in containers. Bush in height no more than 50 cm.
Tomatoes are sweet, red, weighing 20-50 g each, collected in a brush.
Tiny Tim
A Dutch variety bred specifically for fruiting on the windowsill, regardless of the season. The height of the bush does not exceed 30-50 cm.
Tomatoes are round, with moderate sourness, red, weighing 12-15 g.
Florida Petite
One of the best varieties of tomatoes to grow on a windowsill. A bush 30 cm high. The fruits are collected in large brushes, red, rounded, quite large for a pot culture – 20-40 g each.
It is recommended for cultivation at any time of the year, it has reduced requirements for lighting.
Terms of planting
If the culture is created the right conditions, tomatoes on the windowsill will grow all year round. You can even get the harvest by a certain date, for example, New Year, March 8, birthday. The first ripe homemade tomatoes will appear about 3 months after sowing the seeds. In order not to be mistaken, it is better to make an allowance for adverse conditions, and add a few more days or a week.
You can calculate the date of sowing seeds yourself. If the tomatoes on the windowsill should be in time for the New Year, they should be planted at the end of September.
Seed and soil preparation
Coated tomato seeds for growing on windowsills are planted dry. With the rest, the gardener can carry out all the operations he wants, fortunately, few plants are needed. Strictly speaking, they need only short-term heating, pickling and soaking until swelling. Germination of old tomato seeds should be checked.
It is better not to use planting material of unknown origin at all. Tomatoes can be tall, it’s a pity to throw them away, and keeping them at home is problematic.
To grow tomatoes on the windowsill and not bother with the preparation of the soil mixture, use purchased soil for seedlings based on peat. It must be placed in a bucket directly in the bag, pour boiling water over it, cover with a lid and let it cool naturally.
Fans of preparing the soil on their own can use one of the recipes:
- sand and garden soil (1:2);
- humus, neutral (black) peat, sod land (1:1:1);
- sod land, humus (compost), vermiculite (perlite) – in a ratio of 4: 4: 1;
- garden soil, humus, sand, peat (5:5:2:1).
Whatever components are used in the self-compilation of the soil mixture, they must first be disinfected in any convenient way: shed with potassium permanganate, steamed, calcined in the oven. It is forbidden to take land from the garden where tomatoes were previously grown.
It is impossible to reuse the substrate with vermiculite even after careful processing. Under the influence of moisture, it begins to decompose after 6 months.
How to plant seeds
First you need to take care of the backlight. It may be required not only in winter or early spring. It all depends on the amount of light that the plants grown on the windowsill get. In some houses, it is necessary to install lamps even in summer, otherwise the indoor tomatoes will stretch out, become ugly, and they simply will not give a harvest.
It is better to plant tomato seeds for growing on a windowsill immediately in individual containers. You can use special pallets, plastic or peat cups.
The process of planting and growing before moving to permanent containers step by step:
- If there are no lower holes in the container for the outflow of water, they are made first. It is convenient to use a hot nail.
- Plastic glasses or pallets fall asleep with a wet substrate. Glasses are about 1/3 full. Lightly compact the substrate.
- 5-10 seeds are planted in each container to a depth of 2-3 mm.
- Humidify from a household spray bottle.
- Cover with glass or transparent cellophane.
- Keep at a temperature of about 25 ° C.
- Ventilate the container daily, remove condensate, check the humidity.
- When shoots appear, they are moved for a week to a bright place with a temperature of about 16 ° C. Seed tomatoes grown on a windowsill should not stretch. And this cannot be avoided even with dwarf varieties without a decrease in temperature at the initial stage of development, and good lighting.
- Further, the seedlings are kept on window sills at a temperature of about 20 ° C. They are illuminated up to 12 hours a day.
- When 2 true leaves appear, choose the 1 strongest sprout. The rest are cut or plucked. It is impossible to leave 2 or more plants in the container – the feeding area is already limited.
- Tomatoes planted in deep glasses are sprinkled with a moist substrate along the cotyledon leaves about once every 10 days.
- When 3-4 true leaves appear, give the first top dressing. It is better to use a special fertilizer for tomatoes. There, all the elements necessary for culture are given in correctly selected proportions. A few extra rubles spent on specialized top dressing will save you many problems in the future and facilitate care. The concentration of the working solution should be the same as indicated in the instructions for seedlings.
- Every 10 days it is recommended to treat the leaf with a solution of humate + alternately epin and zircon. A chelate complex or a half dose of a highly water-soluble mineral fertilizer can be added to the spray mixture.
- After 2 months, the tomatoes are transferred to large pots. They are carefully removed from intermediate containers, trying not to destroy the earthen clod.
It is recommended to plant indoor varieties of tomatoes in plastic containers with a capacity of 3 liters.
Well suited and pots of unbaked clay. If they look unsightly or do not fit with the interior, beautiful flower pots are used to mask them.
Caring for potted tomatoes
Caring for tomatoes when grown on windowsills is not so difficult. If the soil mixture has been disinfected, and indoor flowers are at some distance, the culture will get away from most of the diseases and pests that plague it in the open field and greenhouses.
Tomatoes located on windowsills have much less problems than growing them on balconies and in hanging baskets next to the house.
Care is as follows:
- regular watering;
- loosening the substrate 1-2 weeks after transplantation;
- top dressing;
- removing the lower leaves if they lay on the ground;
- illumination up to 12-16 hours a day, and in a row – the plant should also rest;
- harvesting.
To maintain decorativeness, you can remove the leaf or stepson “out of order”, but you should not be too zealous.
Preventive treatments for tomatoes on the windowsill are usually not needed. But if there are infected indoor plants in the house, or planting was carried out in a self-composed substrate, you will have to use both fungicides and insecticides at the dosage indicated on the package.
Pollination of tomatoes with cotton swabs is not necessary. It is enough to shake the bushes several times during flowering.
Feeding
In greenhouses or in the garden, tomatoes receive many vital elements from the soil and air. Even on the balcony, more useful and harmful substances enter through the leaves than indoors.
That is why when growing tomatoes on a windowsill, it is recommended to use complex fertilizers for nightshade crops. And carry out top dressing both at the root and along the leaf. This will have to be done every 2 weeks, diluting the drug 2 times more than indicated on the package.
Variety Baby grown at home
If you managed to find a fertilizer specifically designed for container tomatoes, you just need to strictly follow the instructions.
Otherwise, the plant will constantly experience a lack of one or another macro- or microelement. You will have to determine what exactly the tomato lacks. Any mistake is fraught, at best, with a loss of decorativeness, at worst, with the death of a bush.
Those who are still going to make up a “diet” of tomatoes standing on the windowsill on their own need to know:
- At the initial stage of development, nitrogen should prevail in the fertilizer. In the future, it can not be completely excluded from top dressing. In the beds, nitrates are taken from the soil. When growing tomatoes in a pot culture on a windowsill, the owners must make up for the lack, but give nitrogen in very limited doses.
- After the appearance of the ovaries, tomatoes require mainly potassium, phosphorus, calcium and magnesium. They affect the formation and development of fruits, the accumulation of sugars, and therefore the taste.
- Micronutrients are poorly absorbed through the root. It is best to give them when processed sheet in chelated form.
- Epin and zircon are not fertilizers. These are anti-stress preparations of natural origin, which are recommended to be added to the working solution with each foliar top dressing.
Experienced grower. Experience 40 years. Graduated from Michurinsk State Agrarian University (MICHGAU)When growing tomatoes on the windowsill, the main thing is to choose the right variety. It should be standard, beautiful, with small fruits, capable of growing in a small pot. And we should not forget that indoor tomatoes are intended primarily for decorating the room, and then for food.
