Took me almost four days but they have been relocated to their own little patch of heaven, a 3.5 inch pot! Better yet, I got the website up and updated with all of my 2013 varieties, all 161 of them. My peppers have been updated too, 41 varieties. If you are interested in tomatoes and peppers, check it out. There is a lot of info on how to plant them and grow them to great heights. Plus, you will be amazed how many kinds and colors there are.
the website address is: http://www.thetomatolady.com
After an initial watering from the top, we bottom water so as not to encourage damping off. They will wick it up from the bottom getting right to where it needs to go – the roots.
This is a shelving rack with ordinary fluorescent lights hovering just above flats full of tomato plants. The lights need to be close to provide light and warmth otherwise the plants will get leggy
When growing for your home garden, start seeds 8 weeks prior to the last frost date. Always use sterile seed starting mix and sterile pots. Buy them new every year or sterilize used pots with a 10% bleach solution. Sometimes I run mine through the dishwasher on the top rack and toss a little bleach in before I start the wash cycle (damping off can be a real problem if you don’t.)
Place the seeds on top of the medium; cover with about 1/4” inch of mix and press down with your hands to smooth. Sprinkle with water from a “gentle” watering can to avoid washing the seeds away. I then fill my flats with hot water until they start floating, they will absorb this.
Put them in a warm place. Mine go under ordinary fluorescent lights, about an inch away from the flats, in the dining room. The heat from the lights keep it warm. (You can use bottom heat such as a heating mat or the top of refrigerator if you like.) Bottom water as needed, don’t let them dry out. In about a week you should start to see germination. Grow them under the lights until you see the first true leaves, a pair of true leaves. Transplant into larger pots.
Peppers seem to take forever to germinate, sometimes as much as 3 weeks. Tomatoes can be up as early as 4 days from planting.
Key points for maximum success:
sterile seed starting mix
sterile pots
warm location for germination
water from the bottom
good ventilation
These basic instructions work for just about every seed you want to start in pots to get a jump on the season. I will post more on starting different kinds of seeds and their needs in other posts so stay tuned.
Boy, it’s taken a very long time for them to start germinating.Yesterday, the serranos started poking there heads above” ground”. One of the new varieties that I am growing is called “Fruit Basket” It is supposed to be for hanging pots. They are 68 days. Its low, spreading form reaches just 10 to 12 inches tall but spreads up to 2 feet. According to the literature, it is supposed to be a sweet bell with a peppery bite and sometimes will grow as large as 5″ long. I can’t wait to try it!
Sunday, the first of babies started showing up. I’ts amazing, we check several times a day hoping to see a shoot and nothing. The next morning you look and lo and behold they are there! The odd thing is that the peppers have only shown one volunteer, a giant marconi. It is the only one and they were planted at the same time as the tomatoes on the third of March, I think it was. As for outside, there are some yellow anenomes that are cheerfully blooming in the garden. After a tour of the garden beds I see a whole row of garlic that we missed and an onion that are about 3 inches high. No asparagus yet although I do see the tips of the rhubarb.
In the greenhouse, I have cabbage “Copenhagen” that I transplanted into cell packs. I’m thinking that I can put them outside since they can take quite a bit of cold. The hollyhocks and geraniums have been transplanted in cell packs and the alyssum and lobelia will be next. One of our cats got into the greenhouse and there are big footprints in some of the single cell starter packs. I am not happy.
Still it is wonderful to go into my little greenhouse and and see the blooms of the geraniums that I carried over last winter. One of my miniature roses is even starting to bloom!
…but they will be someday. On Sunday, March 3rd I and a friend planted about 1500 pepper seeds. This is what they look like pre germinating. this year. This year I will have 41 varieties, including red, yellow and caribbean red habaneros, purple and red cayenne, anaheims, poblanos and sweet purple bells. Did you know that poblanos and anchos are the same thing? When they are dried, they become anchos.
Gardening Forever
I rec’d a catalog form Gardener’s Supply and this is on the front cover. I thought I’d share this since there are a lot of people who want to garden but can’t get ont heir knees. I will post other things that you can do to make it easier in the coming weeks and days. This is one way of gardening when you have physical challenges and limitations.
I am planning the varieties of peppers that I am going to grow this year and am wondering if anyone out there has any particular favorites that they like to grow and cook with. It seems in the past, our most popular are the jalapeños (which true aficionados don’t consider hot), Ancho/poblanos (which are called anchos when dried and poblanos when fresh) and sweet banana peppers. I myself love to cook but don’t like hot and spicy so I am a wimpy hispanic! I can do beautiful things with sweet peppers though. Most folks don’t know that almost all peppers start out green and then turn some color or other. Purple, red, yellow, light green, white, chocolate brown, orange, and gold are the colors that peppers come in. One note; I grew a pepper last year that started out a creamy white color. It was beautiful pepper that eventually turned red.
I’ve started going through my seed catalogs. If I recycled them by the pound I’d have about 20 dollars worth. Some of these catalogs are miniature works of art. Beautiful pictures and fascinating information make it a pleasure to read through them. So far, I’ve gotten through 3 catalogs. One I’d like to recommend is “Botanical Interests”. Their website is http://www.botanicalinterests.com I was intrigued with their hand drawn illustrations which brought out the beauty in the flowers and the vegetables. Of course I’ve always thought that veggies are decorative in themselves. This year I will order the “Calypso Beans”, Lettuce; “Butterhead Speckles,” and a couple of melons; “Minnesota Midget” and “Canary Tweety”. I know, I know, I’ve never had good luck with melons but these look interesting and have shorter maturation dates. All gardeners keep trying, don’t we? For flowers, I will order a dianthus called” Rainbow Loveliness” one of the sweetest smelling and most delicate flowers I’ve ever had the pleasure to grow. I’m a big fan of impatiens and they have “Swirl Monet Blend”, a picotee blossom that looks like it’s in shades of pink. With all of the catalogs out there, most of whom are offering the same varieties, it can be hard to choose who to order from. It’s nice when a catalog goes above and beyond just trying to sell you seeds and treats you to a satisfying, visual experience, That alone sets them apart from the crowd and makes me want to purchase from them. Check out their catalog!
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Notes From The Tomato Lady 