Tomato and Pepper Varieties

Tomato seedlings needing to get potted up into individual containers, or else there will be dire consequences. The flowers planted in the same tray are taking forever to come up.

Pepper seedlings were started weeks before the tomatoes but of course they took ages to come up and as always they are much slower growing.

I had a lot of old tomato seeds which are planted just to see if they are still viable. I've already made a list of the number of each variety I'm planning to grow this year, so there's going to be lots of extra seedlings. (Usually half the plants are lost to bird activity.) Most of the tomato varieties are known for their flavor rather than their ability to produce. Luckily we usually have the perfect weather to grow Brandywine, so that sometimes makes up for it.

List of hot peppers that have germinated:
Early jalapeno
Hungarian Hot Wax
Jalafuego
Numex Big Jim
Numex Joe E. Parker
Santa Fe Grande
Aji Lemon

The only peppers that didn't germinate are Serrano and Anaheim.

List of tomatoes that have germinated:
Fat Cherry
Black Cherry
Sun Gold Cherry
Amish Paste
Ananas Noire
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Big Rainbow
Big Zebra
Black from Tula
Black Krim
Black Prince
Black Brandywine
Dark Brandywine
Pink Brandywine
Yellow Brandywine
Celebrity hybrid
Cherokee Purple
Chocolate Stripes
Cosmonaut Volkov
Coustralee
Golden King of Siberia
Goldie
Granny Cantrell
Hillbilly Flame
Jubilee
Kelloggs Breakfast
Lilac Giant
Manyel
Mexico
Orange Icicle
Pantano Romensco
Paul Robeson
Peron
Pilcer Vesy
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye
Red Pear
San Marzano Redorta
Taxi

The tomatoes that haven't germinated are Djena Lee's Golden Girl and Pruden's Purple. These are some of my oldest tomato seeds so there's no surprise with the lack of germination.

Pink Brandywine is my favorite tomato, on good years the flavor is outstanding and production heavy. I've only had one good year with Cherokee Purple whose flavor is excellent, most times they split terribly and rot in our sweltering humidity but I'm going to give it another go. Friends who regularly grow Cherokee Purple say they are much more consistent in raised beds.

Tomatoes usually get potted up twice. They go from seed starter tray to little Styrofoam cups, then onwards to quart-sized yogurt containers. Yes, we eat a lot of yogurt. Out in the garden, tomatoes and peppers get crushed eggshells and used coffee grounds in their planting holes.

This year I'm keeping rock dust and beneficial nematodes to my lineup for soil amendment as well as adding garden inoculant for beans and peas. So we shall see, what we shall see.

All the Tomatoes are Now Planted in the Garden

I planted the rest of the tomatoes today after planting twenty yesterday, so that is a total of 64 tomato plants in the garden this year. After watering them in, I covered them with vented plastic cups to keep the birds from eating them in the very early morning. Last year half of the tomato seedlings were lost to birds. Can you imagine the horror of coming out one morning and finding nipped growing tips and broken pecked stems? The cups will have to be removed before the sun gets too hot since it's predicted to reach 80 degrees tomorrow (26 Celsius). At least the warm temperatures will help the pole beans and okra with germinating.

The tomato plants are spaced 18 inches apart with rows 24 inches apart, and 2 rows per bed with beds 3 feet apart.

It took 4 hours to plant forty-four seedlings due to the mulch I had to work around. I am less then enthusiastic thinking about the peppers and eggplants that still need to be planted. It will probably go faster kneeling rather than crouching, so I will try that next time.

Potting Up the Germinated Tomato Plants

Today, I went ahead and potted up 18 of the taller and leggier of the tomato plants that have sprouted this week into individual styrofoam cups. The seedlings get buried deep since tomato plants are so good about forming roots along their stems, and only one got her little stem bent but hopefully she'll heal up well. All in all, there are now 25 tomato plants growing from fourteen of the twenty-two varieties planted. The newly potted plants are now sitting on top of my husband's table saw out in the unheated studio under a clip-on light. The light will be left on twenty-four hours a day, and another light will get added once more plants have germinated. Being out in the cooler temperatures seems to keep the plants from getting leggy, the stems get stout and leaves thick.

The peppers and eggplants have yet to poke their heads up out of the soil. But I am very hopeful they will get a move on soon. It is a bit late in the season for starting peppers and eggplants since they take so long to germinate and I like to the seedlings to be at least 8 weeks old when they're planted out in the garden. Last year the peppers and eggplants were started in January, this year March. Ah well, better late than never. Outside planting is usually done between the last week of April and the first week of May. I think we got our first tomato the first week of June last year.

The floating row cover I ordered off of Ebay came in the mail a couple of days ago. I'm pretty excited about using it this year. And I got to pick up a couple of fifty feet soaker hoses at the tool store today, they were on sale for ten dollars apiece and were nye irresistible at that price.

This year the tomato plants will be supported using my husband's interpretation of the Florida weave and the peppers will be tied to tall bamboo stakes. The last time I grew anaheim peppers a torrential downpour snapped branches and bent stems. Even with a few broken pepper plants, 2010 was a grand Salsa Year where I was able to can 24 quarts of thick and juicy, sweet and spicy tomato salsa. Yum.