After planting about fifty tomato seeds that were given the opportunity to germinate, grow, and compete in my annual tomato seedling competition, I’m now down to twelve strong and healthy tomato plants that have earned their spots out in the garden. I selected a dozen interesting tomato varieties, most of them heirlooms, to grow from seed this season. It wasn’t easy to choose among the candidates as there are hundreds of unique heirlooms to select from.

Yesterday I set my tomato transplants out into the garden and thought I’d share the techniques that I use to grow healthy tomato plants indoors. The tomato seeds were planted about six weeks ago and resulted in a dozen healthy transplants for the garden.