It's February 2025 and there is no better month for starting tomatoes from seed in Ireland. Now is also a good time to cold stratify strawberry seeds in the fridge too to mimic winter.
#gardening
#gardeningwithbrendan
#tomato
#strawberry
#sowing
#spring2025
#gardening
#gardeningwithbrendan
#tomato
#strawberry
#sowing
#spring2025
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, welcome back. It's now 2025. It's been about 3 months since we last did a video diary.
00:21So I've already started and I've planted loads of things over the last 8 weeks or so. A lot
00:27of seedlings running about the houses. Turned into a little shop of horrors here at the
00:31moment but I'll show you all that when I get a bit more organised next week. This week,
00:37for today's video, I'm just going to be sowing some tomato seeds and some strawberry seeds
00:43as well. I'm going to cold stratify them so I'll show you how I do that. So types of tomatoes,
00:49I have 2 packets here of the Money Maker from 2 different suppliers. I'm going to test which
00:58works best. We have a Dairy. These were 99p I think from the shop. And these are Organic
01:08Centre ones from Coyote Cabin. I was down there over the summer. So I'm going to put
01:16these in here and check out which germinates best and hopefully we'll get some germination
01:24on both. I also have some other ones, some yellow cherry tomatoes and some red cherry
01:30tomatoes. So we'll be planting them today as well. Some other things I want to get sorted
01:36over the next week or so are lettuce, brussel sprouts, spring onions, swiss chard and these
01:46are the strawberries that we're going to be cold stratifying today as well. They're in a
01:50seeded bag here and these are fresca strawberries. So we might as well get on with sowing the
02:00tomatoes. What I've done here, this is a big tray that I've filled with water. I got this
02:05tray off Amazon. It's 100% recycled plastic which is good but it just holds a lot of trays at the
02:11one time and when you have a lot of seedlings it's very handy and it's good and deep. Even
02:16for carrying small plants if you have them in individual pots this would be very handy. So
02:21we'll just get on. We'll open up some of these now and see what they're like inside. Last year
02:28I just dumped whole packets of seeds in. This year I'm not going to do that. I'm going to save some.
02:39This will be the Mirabella Blanche. This is a small yellow tomato.
03:01The seeds are quite unusual looking. They're very pale. There's not many seeds in this packet.
03:23We're heading towards the end of February actually. I had hoped to get these planted in
03:35mid-February but just one thing or another I didn't and the weather was that cold as well.
03:40I didn't want to give them too bad a start but you can see the days are starting to lengthen now
03:47and February is ideal for planting tomatoes in Ireland because they need a long growing season.
03:55There's been a lot of people I've been chatting to who, or I've seen online as well,
04:01like some people chatting about how they started tomatoes and they never ripened by the time the
04:07winter came this year and that's because they plant them too late. All the packets say March,
04:16April but you really need to get them started in February up on our climate.
04:21So all I'm doing is I've pre-soaked this compost in this small 2 to 3 inch trays
04:29and then I'm just putting one seed in each of these and I'm putting it at about maybe a quarter
04:43of an inch down from the top. What I should do is just belay them out first so I can see them.
04:48There's not very many seeds in this packet.
05:00That's grand, we've just about enough. So there, 12. So that's good. I'll just push them down
05:19now into the soil and cover them. Tomatoes don't need like to germinate, a lot of seeds do but
05:25they don't and I'm going to be putting these in the iron cupboard, the hot press, because they
05:35do need a good bit of heat to germinate. I have heat mats there but I don't think they're going
05:39to be warm enough for them to germinate but as soon as they germinate then I'll take them out
05:44and put them on a windowsill so it gets a bit of surface and sun. And that's it all done. Very
05:56simple process, just good quality compost and I'm using McCann's compost. I had great success with
06:06it last year. The best advice I could give you for getting good compost is go to your local
06:11garden centre. They are the experts in gardening and they always have the best compost. There's
06:17near where I am, there's some in Derry, there's some in the Strabane area and it's always superior,
06:26it's always the best because it's usually what they use themselves. So just firm them down,
06:37make sure there's good contact with the soil and then we'll move on to the next couple of varieties.
06:43So on the one side I'm just writing the name or the type of tomato and on the other I'm just
07:03writing tomato and the date it was sown which is the 19th or 20th of the 2nd, 25th, I can't
07:16believe it's 2025. Time just flies the older you get so already I've forgotten which is which.
07:26This happens all the time. I'm not really sure. This was the Maribel and I'll have to watch the
07:40video back actually and make sure. That's one good thing about doing this. So tomato and this
07:54was the Cherry Cerise and the other one was Sweet Million. I think I'm cursed with tomatoes because
08:13every year I mess up which is which and end up potting them all in the same pot. So I think I
08:21may have just done it again but at least we'll know what this one is. Now this isn't seed starting
08:33compost. You can buy that but it has no nutrients so once the seeds germinate it's kind of useless
08:37so I just I don't use it. I just use normal compost for everything and then just get these
08:47ones open now. I should have brought a towel over for my dirty hands. I just shred the seeds up because
09:10I knew these things just we dried tomato seeds that you would see in a fruit. So what I have
09:27here is using a spray bottle again and what we're going to do with these is cold stratify them. I
09:35just need to get scissors. These are from Nicky's Nursery in England. Out of them looks like an
09:50independent grower and it's strawberry fresca which are partly perennial. It says to show them
10:01at 15 to 20 degrees and just cover with a thin layer of vermiculite which I don't have. But
10:12before that process what's really handy for a lot of perennials is cold stratification. It just
10:20means that the seeds think they've gone through winter and the best place to do it is in the
10:25fridge but the seeds have to be moist for it to work. So the only other thing you need for it
10:32apart from the spray bottle is some kind of reusable bag or tub with a seal on it. So it
10:40could be a plastic tupperware tub like you would put sandwiches on or something and a bit of kitchen
10:46roll. A sturdy kitchen roll works best because sometimes what you find is and I found it there
10:52I was trying to find some flower seeds is that with the thinner stuff the seeds get trapped in
10:58between them and then they sometimes kind of sprout and it's very difficult to get them out
11:07from between the two thin layers and so this is good thick sturdy stuff. I'm just going to get
11:17the seeds open first and again it's really interesting seeing how many independent suppliers
11:36there are for seeds out there. It's worth trying them all anyway. These are absolutely tiny. I'm
11:45just going to put the seeds to one side there. I don't think there's many of them either and then
11:52the next step is basically just soaking this. You don't want it dripping wet but you want it to be
12:01good and damp. So just do it on both sides because you want the seeds to make contact with the
12:14moisture like they would if they were lying on the ground outside over winter and then the
12:23temperature of the fridge which is around five degrees or less is ideal because it just mimics
12:30winter. It's the best thing you can do. If I threw them out in the ground maybe one of them might
12:37come up or none of them because the chance you take but by doing this you have the best chance
12:43of success for germination. I will leave them in the fridge inside this bag for about two weeks.
12:54Some take longer than others. I've got some Delphiniums in there at the moment. They're the
12:58same. Plants will come back year on year like this process. Most annuals will not need this at all.
13:05You just plant them and away you go. Perennial plants come back every year like this year. I
13:14have some strawberries that I bought in a garden centre a few years back that have been putting
13:22out shoots and I've been just putting pots onto them and they overwinter fine in the garden.
13:29You don't need deep pots for strawberries either. These seeds are so small I don't know if you can
13:34see them with my hand there. They will probably be difficult to see when I'm
13:49going to find them. I'm just putting whatever is on here on there.
13:57I can't remember how many seeds was on that. Maybe 30 or something like that.
14:00But if I get one or two the maturity I'll be happy with that.
14:11Last year I grew Alpine strawberries outdoors just from around this time actually. I just
14:17plopped the seeds in and quite a few of them came up and they actually started fruiting there
14:25in early winter. So that's basically that done now.
14:32All you need to do with that is just put it inside the bag, seal it.
14:38What I'm going to do is just give it one last spray on either side.
14:47Just seal it and then leave it in there for a couple of weeks, pick it out
14:51and then check. You might see some of the seeds have germinated in the fridge. If not,
15:03you just plop them on the compost as we did here.
15:10With seeds that small I probably wouldn't even bother covering them with compost. I
15:14would just leave them on the surface and press them down and then
15:21just keep them, it says 15 degrees which is room temperature, so 15 to 20. So just keep them
15:27anywhere in your house like near a window and they should come along fine. Then because they're
15:34hardy as well you can grow them on outside so they'll not be taking up any room once they have
15:40actually germinated. So that's all that done and that's how you cold stratify. It's the same
15:47process for everything that needs cold stratification. It's mostly flowers and some
15:55fruits and a few vegetables but mostly perennial flowers.