Tomato & SUnflower Seedlings

I've decided to try starting my garden this year from seedlings and have a couple questions. The seeds have germinated and they are in a domed & heat mat container. When do I remove the dome and heat mat? Here are a couple pics after 4 days of germination. I forgot to mention, there are sunflowers on the left and three rows of tomatoes on the right.

I remove anything that captures humidity and adds warmth after I get my germination. I then put the grow lights right above the seedlings and manage moisture as they grow.

Last year I had over 50 individual tomato plants because I 'oopsie' germinated at a higher rate than expected and I couldn't bring myself to just thin them.

What kinds of tomatoes and sunflowers are you growing this year?

I'm growing Teddy Bear & Mammoth Sunflowers and for tomatoes I'm growing Better Bush, Red Beefsteak and Husky Cherry. I would love to grow some Mr. Stripey's but every year I get two or 3 huge tomatoes and then they split open before they are fully ripened. Last year one side ripend while the other side stayed green.

I've been trying to find tomato varieties for my area that work the best. I have gone the route of buying a couple heirloom mixes, growing a smattering of plants, and then saving seeds from the best producers.

Slow and steady development of a New York Landrace is my plan. I hope you update in the future when you have the plants grown!

To add to what Timothy said, I'd uppot the tomato seedlings into gallon pots as soon as they grow some true leaves (the second set). I know lots of folks who have experimented with uppotting tomatoes into 4" vs gallon pots over the years, and those uppotted directly into gallon pots grow much better and faster than those uppotted into 4" pots. Tomatoes are peculiar this way. They love having lots of space for their roots!

They will be unpotted into two gallon pots when they get to that stage and the Red Beefsteaks will then get put directly into the raised bed outside when weather is right.

Timothy Fredericy wrote:I'm growing Teddy Bear & Mammoth Sunflowers and for tomatoes I'm growing Better Bush, Red Beefsteak and Husky Cherry. I would love to grow some Mr. Stripey's but every year I get two or 3 huge tomatoes and then they split open before they are fully ripened. Last year one side ripened while the other side stayed green.

In my area Mr. Stripey is too large to fully ripen properly but I discovered that Big Hill was a good replacement for it.   It is one of the early varieties from Joseph Lofthouse and grew very well for us as well as producing a nice number of large fruity tasting tomatoes.  I got my seeds from Snake River Seed Cooperative   Depending on where you live there may still be time for you to get seeds from them for this year.   If not you may want to add it to your list of varieties to try next year.

Thanks for that info and I will try those seeds out but probably next year, I'm out of space this year!
BTW, I'm in S. Oregon