Soak tomato seeds in water for faster germination (2024)

If your struggle to grow your tomatoes from seeds and have a bad record of starting the seeds, follow these steps below to boost your success rate. Wether is soaking the tomato seeds overnight or providing them with some extra heat, you can too germinate the seeds faster.

Speed up tomato seed germination by soaking the seeds

Many gardeners soak their tomato seeds before planting for faster and better results. Tomatoes are the most commonly grown vegetable in the garden and if you think you are a little late sowing the seeds this is a great method to kick start the seeds. The technique is proven by biological scientist. During the study the tomato seeds were soaked for 12, 24 and 36 hours, and the best results were achieved after a 24 hour soak.

So if you have older seeds or you late with the sowings then you can just soak the tomato seeds in water for a day to speed up the germination.

Method:

Place the seeds in small container in lukewarm water, they don’t need to go in the fridge at all, you can just leave the seeds on the windowsill or the counter at room temperature for 24 hours. If you want to sow the tomato seeds sooner and you do not want to wait that long, even 2 – 4 hours of soaking helps.

Be careful though as it is possible to oversoak the tomato seeds, so if you forget about them for a few days and let them sit in water for many days they might not germinate at all.

Soaking the tomato seeds before sowing not just speeds up germination by days but also the seedlings will grow more vigorously, the above study found.

Faster germination with the help of heat

Tomato plants love the warm summer days and in a hot summer they produce much better than in a cold and wet summer. This is true when it comes to the seeds too. Faster the seeds germinate the more heat you can give them.

If you grow a lot of peppers and tomatoes from seeds it is worth to invest in a heated propagator. At home you can place the seeds near a radiator or in the airing cupboard for extra heat or try a few budget propagation methods. Tomato seeds germinate in 5 – 10 daysat 25 – 30 Celsius. So imagine how cold they are on the windowsill in March and April.