Thinning the Started Seeds

Before Thinning

After thinning. You can still see a few "trunks". A small but important step in raising seedlings is to thin them when they start to shade each other out. I thinned the tomato seedlings, with a nail scissors, to about one inch apart. I looked for nice fat stems, not tall plants, as the shorter, stockier ones are stronger.

The basil plants on the right need thinning, too, but I will let them get a little bigger so that I can toss the thinnings into a salad.