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Growing Tomatoes

Best Water for Germination & Seedlings

14 years ago

My city tap water tastes awful and probably contains chlorine & fluorine and Lord knows what else, so I was thinking of watering tomato seeds and seedlings this year with either boiled tap water (cooled down of course) or distilled water which I would think would be really pure. Collecting rain water is not an option for me. Boiled or distilled, would it make any difference, and would either be better than tap?

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Comments (3)

compost_pete-grower
14 years ago
Rain water is basically distilled water, I would give that a try. I try to avoid tap water!!!
mulio
14 years ago
The metals present in your tap water are probably such low levels there would be little if any uptake. Uptake of metals in vegetable plants of any significance only occurs when the concentration of the metals is very high in the roots zone. If for some reason you know metals to be high (other than iron) you best call the EPA.

There is probably more fluoride off gassed by perlite than in the water. Though excess fluoride can harm, the level of these sources should not harm generally tomato plants. Fluoride problems usually start to show as marginal necrosis (browning of leaf edges). Some house plants like Dieffenbachia are sensitive to low levels of fluoride (and thus perlite soil mixes should not be used as media for them).

Do you have any evidence that the water chlorine is causing a problem (consistent yellowing of the leaves)? Usually chlorine is not that high in municipal water sources.

Chlorine removal has several options. One could leave open pots of water in the sun for a few days before using and let it dissipate OR buy pills used for aquarium fish to remove chlorine. If your water treatment plant uses aminated chlorine, then the sitting out in the sun method won't work as well. After that the boiling (which uses a lot of energy) or carbon filters would be other alternatives.
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zeuspaul
14 years ago
Most municipalities now use chloramine. Boiling isn't going to help. Leaving it in sunshine for two weeks will help diminish chloramine.

I wouldn't worry about it. The small amount of chloramine in tap water will be *used up* quickly by the overwhelming amount of organic matter.

Zeuspaul

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