Planting Out

The warm days (and nights) are finally here and I planted out tomatoes and peppers this week.

I am still pretty space constrained in the new yard so I am only putting 4 tomato plants in the ground. I also planted 4 pepper plants in my 5 gallon SWC (self watering containers).

Tomatoes that I planted were: Lemon Boy, Red Zebra and Roma. I just was reading over some old posts and these were top 3 from 2009 so I guess I am consistent. I also plan on doing Chocolate Cherry again but I didn't have good luck with those seedlings so I had to start over with them. It will be interesting to see how well those can catch up since they only were started a week or so ago.

The peppers are Jalepeno, Thai and Mini bell; I grew peppers in the SWC last year and had good luck so I am hoping for a repeat performance.

Three tomatoes ready for planting

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Jalepeno

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SWC

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Installation Complete

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Mulching

This past weekend we did a long overdue mulch project. The kids and I put down 10 yds of mulch.

Tomatoes 2012

Last spring was very busy with robotics and whatnot and we didn't do any seeds.

This year I wanted to get back into the game.

On Sunday night I started 6 tomato varieties, some various herbs and some jalepenos.

The tomatoes are in small pots in starter mix; the six types are:

• Lemon Boy
• Chocolate Cherry
• Sweet 100
• Roma
• Red Zebra
• Mary Robinson's German Bi-color

The Jalepenos, Rosemary and Lavender are being sprouted in baggies (with wet paper towels). Also I did a mixed herb pot for the kitchen with basil, parsley, oregano and cilantro. Man are those oregano seeds small.

These are the first seedlings that we have done on Windsor Drive.

Seedlings

Today is day 16 for the first batch of seeds. Everything has some true leaves out and the largest plants are ready to be potted up soon.

We had really good germination with everything but the Black from Tula. We put a bunch of Tula seeds in moist paper towel and baggie. Even those took some time to sprout and yesterday we put 4 sprouted seeds with roots (no green yet) into dirt.

I think there are about 25 plants at this time.

In about 2 more weeks we are going to start a second round of plants; those plants will be 6 weeks on June 1st, which is the time that most of my friends and family are interested in getting started.

Also need to think about putting in some herbs and I want to try some okra seeds that I was given last year.

Sprouts

We had our first sprouts 4 days after planting. All of the plants are up and under the lights.

Here are some tiny sprout pictures.

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First Seeds Planted

Well the day finally arrived when we planted the first seeds of 2010.

Colin getting the pots ready



Seed packets a plenty





This is the first round of plants; we planted:

• Lemon Boy
• Red Zebra (from the store and from last years saved seeds)
• Chocolate Cherry*
• Sweet 100
• Black from Tula* (feature tomato of 2010)
• Roma
• Mary Robinson's German Bi-Color*
• Early Girl
• Bloody Butcher

* New for 2010!

Review of last years toms plus plans for 2010

Last year I grew the following tomato seedlings:

Lemon Boy, Sweet 100, Viva Italia, Better boy, Red Zebra, Early Girl, Pink Brandywine
Bloody Butcher, Tiny Tim, Container Choice, Zhongshu #4, San Marzano

I kept at least one of every plant except for Better boy and Early Girl.

Tiny Tim and Container Choice I grew in 5 gallon SWC (self watering containers). The others I grew in the dirt.

My top three plants from last year were:
3) Viva Italina (roma variant) - prolific and useful
2) Lemon boy - very prolific, early, tasty
1) Red Zebra - prolific, large plant, tasty

I honestly couldn't tell any difference between the taste of the hybrid Viva and the San Marzano OP variety and the Viva was more prolific.

Tiny Tim in the SWC was unbelievably prolific but the taste was very forgettable and most of the fruit just withered on the vine. Same with the taste of Container Choice.

This year I am going to grow Chocolate Cherry instead of Sweet 100 (for myself) I will still make some Sweet 100s for my friends and family.

I will definitely plant my top 3 again. This weekend I am going to look through my seeds and see what else I will try that is new. Mortgage Lifter or Rutgers perhaps (I think that I have both).

If I gave you plants last year which ones worked out the best for you?

Garden dreaming

It has been ages since I posted here but I am starting to think about gardening for twenty-ten even amidst the cold and snow.

Just this morning I decided that I was going to start some perrenial herbs pretty soon in order to get a better jump than last year. Specifically rosemary, sage, thyme and maybe a couple more depending on what I have around.

I am going to try not to buy any seeds this year; I have a ton of seeds around so I will try to make do with those. I am sure that the temptation will be overwhelming but I will try to stand firm.

Speaking of temptation, around New Year's eve I saw someone post on GardenWeb that they were starting tomato seeds (someone in zone 5 type of climate) and I was sorely tempted. I am going to hold out until at least 2/15!

Peas

I was just looking back at the post before last; in those pictures the peas are about 18" high. They are twice as high now, I'll get a picture later and put it up.

8 is enough

Planted the last tomatoes in the garden tonight. Now there are eight tomatoes.

Sweet 100
Lemon Boy
Viva Italia
San Marzano
Brandywine Red
Red Zebra
Zhongshu #4
Bloody Butcher

I also put in two peppers tonight (one bell and one Jap). I just have another Jap and a bunch of herbs and I will be about done with the garden.

First pea blossom today.

Blossoms

The big plants have blossoms!







Tomato volunteers (spontaneously sprouted from seed)



Peas



Chive flowers

Paydirt

On May 21st we planted out our first 4 tomatoes!

Here are the candidates



The plants in big pots are 59 days old in this picture; the little plant (San Marzano) is 44 days.

A hole 'to China'



Filled with good stuff




Nice roots (sweet 100)



Lemon Boy on left, sweet 100 on right



Roma on left, San Marzano on right




You can see that the sun was set by the time we got them all squared away. It felt really good to see them in the ground.

More Plants in big pots + all tomato names

Took the training wheels off of 8 more plants tonight. Now there are 22 plants in large pots.

Someone asked about which plants we have; here is the whole list of what we have growing:

Better Boy
Bloody Butcher
Brandywine
Container Choice
Early Girly
Lemon Boy
Red Zebra
Roma (Viva Italia)
San Marzano
Sweet 100
Tiny Tim
Zhongshu #4

Going to let the babies sleep outside tonight

There are now 14 plants in large pots that have been spending their days outside and their nights in the garage.

Tonight is supposed to be mild so they are going spend the first night ever in the elements!

Potting up again

The day finally came and we potted up the largest plants another time. We put them into 3 quart pots (trivia fact, this size pot is sometimes referred to as a gallon pot by some people).

I spent a lot of time hemming and hawing over whether to do this and when and such. Many experience gardners advise against going to such big pots and in hindsight I am starting to see their point. It is a relatively expensive thing to do with the cost of the larger pots and the potting mix. It is also unwieldly to have the plants in the big pots and impractical to have them under lights once they are.

All of that said, we started too early and the plants need to wait at least 2-3 more weeks until they get planted outside and they were outgrowing their pots.

We got a good deal on a big stack of pots and two different types of potting soil. The first soil is Miracle Grow mix and the other is MetroMix 830.

We selected the 8 largest plants and put half of them into miracle grow and the other half into the MetroMix.

*Pix*

The jungle (before)



Materials


First Plant






Stripping the lower branches (gasp)



Colin watering a new plant



The 8 plants take their first trip outside



Now that they are done they look kind of little in their new pots. The weather has been crummy the past few days including today. We had them outside for a few hours this morning and an hour or so tonight (the sun actually came out for a while). The rest of the time they were in their new home in the garage.

There are probably 8 more plants that will need bigger pots and the rest can hopefully survive in the size that they are in now.

More Maters (seeds)

I hit the seed sales this weekend. Home Depot had 1/2 price seeds, so did Steins, Menards were discounted. I picked up the following varieties:

Beefsteak (hybrid)
Bloody Butcher *
Brandywine *
Chocolate Cherry
Containers Choice (hybrid) *
Early Girl (hybrid) *
Mortgage Lifter
Red Zebra *
Roma (hybrid)
Tiny Tim *

I managed not to start one of everything. Only the ones that are starred :-). These are for: backup plan, or my early varieties, or some things to try in containers.

I started everything on Monday (the 27th) except for the Tiny Tim and Container Choice which I started yesterday (the 29th).

With the new additions we now have 11 different varieties in some stage of growth.

Coming up spring

Things outside are starting to show signs of life. The hostas that I divided a few weeks back are leafing out.

Still Growing

Last Friday (day 32) Colin and I took some pics while we were watering the maters.

Colin and the biggest plants



Representative sample



Earlier in the week (on Tuesday the 21st) I potted up the second wave of tomato seedlings including the San Marzanos.

Four Specimens and more

It's day 27 for the tomato project.

I'll start out with some recent activities; I was off of work (vacation) this whole past week. I spent a lot of time working inside remodeling my kitchen ceiling and some time working outside around the yard. The weather was really gorgeous the past couple of days!

I was able to do some veggie work too:

I potted up four of the Viva Italia seedlings that I started a while back.

Colin and I sprouted some peas inside and he planted them in the garden yesterday.

Some of the Jalepenos and bell peppers finally sprouted and are under the lights.

I got some tomato seeds in the mail this week; they are a variety from China. I was
so excited that I had to put a few in dirt just to see how they do. I think that was on Thursday.

Now onto the big news: the tomatoes are really getting big! I took pictures of four of the biggest specimens, one of each variety. Here they are:

All 4



Lemon Boy



Sweet 100



Better Boy



Viva Italia



I am starting to worry about having to pot up again; I don't want them to get rootbound before I get them outside. (And outside is 4 weeks away, minimum).

New shoots and big roots

The San Marzano seeds sprouted yesterday (right on schedule). There are 4 of them up. The Viva Italias that I put in a while back are sprouted too. These will probably be the last seeds that I start this year.



There are big roots in the plants that we potted up last week. I can't really believe how big after just one week.