Honestly, the best thing I ever did for my tomato crop was to double dig and amend the soil with organic matter. It's a lot of work, but once its done, all you have to do is turn in a few inches of compost and/or manure each year. I also think lowering the Ph of my soil to 6.5 has helped quite a bit. As an aside, my favorite soil amendment is composted chicken manure.

The dumbest gardening thing I've ever done is to use regular soil in a pot. It's a recipe for low yields and blossom end rot. The first year I grew tomatoes, I used creek soil (mostly silt) in a container I built from scrap wood. I tried to grow a Brandywine and ended up with only one ripe tomato. It tasted great, though!

My best ideas: if compost tea is good, then putting compost as the top layer (under straw mulch) when I plant my toms means that the splash from the rain is actually compost tea, and is less likely to cause disease. I did that last summer, as well as applying compost tea from my watering can (with rosette). No foliage disease until late in the season, when the previous year I'd had a major problem.

Worst ideas: not using a heat mat because I thought the fluorescents got the soil to a good temp and I didn't need to bother. Somehow the seeds know up from down, and they want bottom heat! My seedlings came up so slowly that year. My heat mat is an electric blanket covered with visquine.

Another bad idea: aiming for 5-week old transplants. Might have been ok if it hadn't been the same year as no heat mat, but it was the same year. My seedlings were tiny. I'd rather have extra time to resow if something doesn't come up, and have big plants and plant-out. I no longer care what that Ag school study says!

"I saw a picture posted by meteor04 (are you there, meteor man?) on another thread that looked like a good technique: Standard 6-cell pots under what looked like a plastic takeout food container, only with holes at the top for ventilation. Not sure if it is a homemade method or one that you can purchase, but it looked like the right size and setup for a small time, urban "farmer" like myself."

I'm still here! That product in the pic is from...Well, here's the link...http://gurneys.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_68085

They seem to be working great for me for toms and peppers.

Worst technique. Had this HUGE sweet 100 going a couple of years ago. Hadn't planned well, and kept having to add cageing to hold this monster up. Pain in the keister to clean up that mess after the season.

Okay, this has nothing to do with tomatoes, but it might ne in a roundabout way. Two years ago I ordered some coffee tree seeds with the hope of growing one as a houseplant. I never planted them, and everything I read said that they take months to germinate and they have to be fresh or there's no hope to get them to sprout. (Stay with me, I'm getting there.)

On a whim, I put them in a small dish with warm water, then poured a liberal amount of hydrogen peroxide straight in the dish (the common 3 percent stuff in the brown bottle at the drug store). It bubbled furiously and that night they started to swell.

The next morning (less than 24 hours from getting them wet) three of them had sprouted.

So if it works for old, hard-to-germinate-even-when-fresh, coffee seeds, it is sure to work on your reluctant tomato seeds. It is my new seed technique, but I probably won't use it so strong on other seeds.

There has been discussion about it before, but it's the first time I had tried it with such indisputable results.

gardenscout...I'd really like to know more (and the specifics) on this technique. Is it as simple as you stated? you just put the seeds in warm water and then add in some hydrogen peroxide? and thats it? do you leave it on, drain it off and add fresh? how long do you leave it on for? How much do you use?

I'm intrigued and would love to know more.

I have mention this before, but the best technique I have used for my Tomatoes and Peppers for saving water / time, less maintance, healthier plans, and better yield is to work the soil with compost of fertilizer deep. I do it only on the holes i will plant them in, (about 12" deep), then much the area with my grass clippings everytime i mow my lawn. Instead of water them regulaly, now i only water them 2 to 3 times a week. If it rains, i might not even have to water them that week. Grass clippings keep the moisture nicely in there, and keeps the soil warm and adds protection from soil diseases. Plus i didn't have to deal with the weeds all spring/summer/fall!. You do have to keep adding the grass clipping because they do decompost pretty quickly.

This year, I will be twicking this technique by collecting rain water, and adding it to the plans warm. Plans loves rain water and i do notice the grow faster and healthier with it.

also, i will be prunning more to save space and increase yield, (adds more work for the yield is worth it because i don't have much space).

Thanks for all the ideas so far and for the link to the "mini greenhouse" containers. I'd love to hear more!

Only 3 1/2 weeks till I can plant my 'mates!

Rain

Re: hydrogen peroxide:

I am no expert, but this time it just happened to work for me. And yes, it was just that simple. I put the seeds in a small dish, covered them with warm water from the tap, then poured HP in the dish. The mixture was probably about 50/50 water and HP. At first there were a few bubbles, and then later there was a lot of bubbling.

When the little root things popped out in the morning, I poured out the liquid and sandwiched them between a moist coffee filter to keep them moist until I can get some rooting mix to put them in.

Now I am trying it on some Neve's Azorean Red tomato seeds, because all of my seedlings are up except for Neve. I mixed up a 50/50 mix in a spray bottle and I water the surface of the soil with it.

Do a search for HP and seed germination and in fact for lots of uses in the garden. I seem to have read a lot about it lately.

The most advantageous thing I have done has been to build raised beds. They have given my tomatoes and all my other plants every edge they need. I wouldn't want to grow any other way.

Earl's Hole Method is a good one for planting and there is a thread here if you will do a search.

As to seedlings, basically I've decided that planting seed 6 weeks before last frost date is not enough growing time. This year I started 9 weeks ahead, and next year I will go at least 12. I saw a guy recently who started seeds the first week of January for mid April planting and he had some really good plants, starting to bloom. I'll certainly start seeds earlier next year.

Don