rjs55555, I've swished onion-seedling clumps in water to break them up, but for tomatoes it's not necessary. They're tough. This spring, I used Craig's dense planting method and waited a little too long to pot up some taller seedlings. The long stem of a brittle Purple Russian seedling broke and looked pretty pitiful, but since tomatoes will root from the stem, and I was planting it deep, I potted it up anyway and labeled that pot. It recovered, and I ended up planting it for a neighbor, where it's now over 6 ft. high.
Even more surprising was a seedling I got at a plant exchange. It had a 3-4-inch stem and was falling out of its pot with the roots exposed, in bone-dry soil, and since no one took it I adopted it. I planted it deep in a pot, and now it's in the garden and doing well.
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