Ideally you'd look for the biggest, bushiest, healthiest looking ones and pick those. If they're all exactly the same, just go eeny meeny miny moe and pick some at random.

Your question raises a couple of questions from me. 4-5 true leaves in starter cells? And 2 plants per cell? Are we talking the little cells like when you buy a 4 pack at the garden center? If that is the case, I would have thinned each cell down to 1 plant at the first true leaf, and probably potted it up to a larger pot (or as I often use, plastic cup with holes poked in it). Your tomatoes will have better early growth if you do this. As for how you choose, Edymnion said it already. :) I only offer this unsolicited advice because I noticed in another thread that you said this was your first garden. Cheers!

I dunno, sunnibel7, I plant multiple seeds per cell, then separate them when they get a few true leaves. I have good luck with it...though I will admit that I haven't done a side-by-side comparison for that vs. thinning. Maybe next year?

As for the original question, you could also try giving away the others to friends & neighbors, and/or try a sunny windowsill (hey, our grandparents did it), or see if the weather is warm enough to send them outdoors on some days.

I learned recently that my elderly neighbor starts all of his tomatoes outdoors, in a sort of makeshift mini-greenhouse that sits about waist-high on the side of his driveway. He puts a blanket over the top and an incandescent bulb inside on the coldest of nights...and he gets great tomatoes.

Of course, I have the same problem. Most of tomatoes won't need to be potted up for another half a week, maybe, but I'm already overrun with peppers. I'll work something out somehow.

Here is a link to your same post on the Tomato Forum with the answers you received there.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: How do I decide...

Leira, I made the switch to thinning (or sometimes breaking out the multiples from the cell and potting up at the cotyledon stage if I am running low on seed) after noticing that the ones that I gave more room and less competition to grew bigger faster. They also seemed to adapt to the garden faster. Maybe try a comparison.

I think the conditions in their pots tend to stay more stable too, instead of rapidly swinging from wet to dry to wet to dry again as seemed to be the case with large plants sharing a tiny bit of soil. But I also know from working in a garden center that tomatoes are tough and can survive in crowded four packs for a while, even if it isn't optimal. So if space is a serious issue, then less than optimal growth is good enough as long as you get plants you can put out and get tomatoes from. I just thought that implicit in the question of "how do you choose which to pot up" was the question of when do you choose to pot up. Cheers!

srg215

You give neither your zone, state, or locale. Sunnibel7 is spot on with the introduction of the concept of WHEN. When will you be able to put these outside (with protection)? EVERYONE PLEASE INCLUDE THE AREA YOU ARE GARDENING IN.

as a side bar (humor)...others have tried (and failed) to slip things by Dave (digdirt) and failed. Makes me smile!

Hey Lonmower (person),

I concur with your comment. One more idea to anyone who wants to decide which tomato to grow.
What is your end use???
Romas for sauce canning are my favorite (and the fastest selling here in the NW)and dehydration. I try to find other good pulp toms to use in salsas.
The slicing kind are great for instant use as well as the small ones for snacks/salads.
I believe this is the way one should choose what plants to grow.

What is wrong with planting both and thinning in situ? Granted, it is the good old reliable tomatoes, but most other plants, it is best to thin after they have started growing in the garden.

Grow them all, I have 40 something cells myself.
Jump them up to larger small pot until it warms up.

I wonder if they are too big to separate. 4-5 leaves in a small plant cell, there are going to be some roots in there. Pinching off one in each cell would be the safest.

A suggestion for next year: Plant 1 seed per cell. If you need 10 tomatoes, start 12 cells. Over decades I've only had a couple of tomato seeds not germinate.

Seeds are really expensive. Instead of deliberately throwing seedlings away, plant fewer seeds and save your seeds for next year.

I did the math on a packet of cabbage seeds. They were over $700 a pound. The different seeds with different weights and different prices are all going to cost different per pound but they are all bloody expensive.

Much too expensive to waste by over-planting and then throwing plants away.