Starting from seed wasn’t too bad for me this year—I am not good at it. I just thought things were getting out of hand at the nursery.
The Ferry Morse seed starting light (T5 fluorescent) worked, barely. I’d just get a no-name LED floodlight style grow light for about $15 (or two) instead if I knew. I used those peat pellet things that sort of inflate when they get wet.
The thing that really cut down on the infant mortality for me this year was using hydroponic plant food on the pellets instead of trying to transplant them to a small pot and then to the soil a few weeks later. I mixed it at half strength and started giving it to the plants as soon as the first true leaves appeared. The plants are fine. I used Maxigrow/Maxibloom which is available for reasonable prices at the local doper hydroponic store.
This year I started:
Black Vernissage
Cherokee Purple
Amish Paste
Pruden’s Purple
Martino’s Roma
Lucid Gem
Mortgage Lifter
Stupice
San Marzano
Carbon
Yellow Cherry (who knows what kind it is, I’ve been saving it for years)
I have 4 or 5 of each except the yellow cherry, we can’t use more than one of them. I combine them all and put up tomato sauce and salsa. I will do ketchup this year too I think. We use a few in season too
Seeds were sown on Feb. 26th. and here you see them today. The ones for my friend were moved from the 4" rootmaker cells on April 1st and potted to the grow bags whereas mine have been in the rootmakers (too long…) but they’re healthy and ready to go.
Well, due to the plots being still too wet, I had to pot up my indoor grown seedlings. I did this to about 32 tomatoes, 12 peppers, 6 basil and a couple cilantro seedlings. They seem to be adapting to their new homes, got them back under the lights. For the next watering, I’m giving them a dose of Medina liquid fertilzer.
Just gave my plants their first watering since I potted them up into the cups. Gave them a drink of some liquid Medina fertilizer. They have really took off since transplanting, some have almost doubled in height. I think I’m going to have to start hardening them off tomorrow as they’re getting so big so fast, as in a bit leggy, even though I’m keeping the lights close to them. I’d like to get them in the ground in about a week.
Had some really gusty winds prior to a short downpour here and one of my Black Krim plants broke. They are growing so fast I can’t keep up with tying them to the stakes. I propped it back up, wrapped the break in parafilm and finished tying it to the stake. Any chance it will recover? If not it’s not a huge deal. I planted two Black Krims and I planted too close together anyway. More of an experiment than anything.
If it’s not completely broken, I would just straighten it back up and perhaps lash the stalk to the stake below and above the bend. Tomatoes are pretty tough plants.
Speaking of tom’s, I have our potted up plants out in the deck, and will leave them overnight. I’ve been hardening them off for the last 5 days, so they’re probably ready to go in the ground tomorrow. We have about 33 of indoor grown tomato plants and 9 peppers. I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get plants in the ground this year, but the weather hasn’t been real cooperative.
Finally got my garden planted. I am going to put in another row of tomato and pepper plants tomorrow for fall production. Here is a list of what I have in the ground growing.
Akers WV
Amana Orange
Bear Creek
Beefywine
Black Cherry
Blueberry Sugar
Boronia
Box car Willie
Brandywine
Calvin’s green
Caro Red
Cherokee Green
Cherokee Purple
Crnkovic Yugoslavian
Daniels
Dester
Dr Caroline Pink
Dr. Wyche
Estlers
Gary’O Sena
German
Goose Creek
Grandpa Willie
Green Doctors
Green doctors Frosted
Green Giant
Green Grape
Green Zebra Cherry
Gregori’s Altai
Heidi
Hibor
HillBilly
Ildi
Indigo Cherry Drops
Indigo Rose
J.D.'s Special C-Tex
Kelloggs
Kimberly
Lillian’s Yellow
Little Lucky
Lucky Cross
Lynnwood
Maglia Rosa
Millionaire
Muleteam
Nebraska Wedding
Omar’s Lebanese
Opalka
Orange Minsk
Brandywine OTV
Peacevinee
Perth Pride
Picardy
Piennolo
Polish C
Red Lifter
Red Orange Stuffer
Red Zebra
Reif’s Red Heart
Reisetomate
Riesentraube
Russian Red
Sprite
Stump of the World
Sunrise Bumblebee
Swamp Sweet Orange
Tastiheart
Tastiheart X LA0417
Vintage Wine
Yoders Yellow
Zeigler’s fleisch
You can always plant the broken part into the ground and start a new plant. They tend to take pretty easily this way. I’ve done it a number of times for broken tomato plants - you will just need a place to put it.
Finally got most (25) of our indoor grown tomatoes in the ground this evening. I ran out of daylight before I could finish planting the last 8 of them. I’ll finish the rest tomorrow, along with 9 pepper plants.
It’s supposed to get down near 50 tonight, but back up to 85 tomorrow and near 90 on Friday. So, I’ll be doing some mulching after they’re all planted.
I didn’t put up my fishing line fence around the patch yet, so hope the “varmits that shall not be named” will leave them alone tonight. The patch is about 50 feet from the end of the house, so hope that’ll help be somewhat of a deterrent.
