Seed-Starting Day

Finally, it was time to start my tomato and pepper seeds indoors today. You folks in Texas and Louisiana are far ahead of me, but experience has shown that if I transplant into my garden before the first week of May, it doesn't do any good. Transplant too early, and my tomato and pepper seedlings just sit there in the cold soil, without growing, while the flea beetles and moles take a toll.

After ALMOST being convinced by Gymgirl to sow my seeds in bulk in larger containers, I reverted back to the way I've done it for the past 10 years. With my method, it's true that I have to do microsurgery to separate crowded seedling roots when transplanting up to larger containers - but, it works out OK and I've never lost a seedling. Anyway, I only leave seedlings in these egg cells until the first set of true leaves form - not long.

I use the same seed-starting containers year after year. They are plastic foam egg cartons that I've glued down to plywood bases after making a small drain hole in each cell. There are 24 cells on each base, and I've numbered the cells A1-24, B1-24, and C1-24. I didn't use "C" this year because I'm not starting any cabbage seedlings (I finally figured out that when my cabbages are ready to harvest, cabbage costs 39 cents a head in the market!).

So today I planted tomato seeds in wet Jiffy Mix in cells A 1 through 24, and pepper seeds in cells B 1 through 24. I plant three seeds per cell in a triangle pattern and I transplant and raise every seedling that comes up - so I could have as many as 72 tomato and 72 pepper seedlings to transplant and share with others. I don't use heat mats, but these go on top of our water heater in our furnace closet where the temperature stays between 75 and 80. I never get quite 100% germination, but usually pretty close.

The part of Gymgirl's method that I am going to use is to transplant seedlings up into cut-off drinking water bottles. The straight sides and depth of those will work just fine.

You can see in the third picture what tomato and pepper varieties I finally settled on this year, and how I keep track of them by numbering the egg cells. My garden season has finally begun!

Ooops. First year and I was so excited, I started too early! I look at it as I was leaving room for mistakes and failures.....knock on wood.....that didnt happen! I keep trying to tell them to slow down, these pics were taken on Thursday and they are already noticably bigger...I can't get the heat much lower in the house!
Saving grace is their final homes will be containers with warm, bug and mole free, potting mix instead of the cold earth. That is with the exception of the one's going to my dad...they will just have to be potted up an extra time, I guess.

Junebugged, your seedlings look real good, especially if this is your first time starting seeds indoors. You're a bit early alright, but they'll be fine.

If you can, you might consider letting them grow to about 6" tall, then move them, lights, and everything into an unheated area like a garage. If you don't have such an unheated area, then maybe a washroom, enclosed porch, or unused bedroom where you can close the heat vents off. Letting your seedlings finish off in a cool area, even as cool as in the 50's, will slow their growth and cause them to have strong, sturdy stems.

Looking good!

I see that you decided to grow Big Beef after all. : ) It's the start of spring when you plant tomato seeds, regardless of temperature. Good luck with the new varieties!

David

"It's the start of spring when you plant tomato seeds, regardless of temperature."
------------------------------------

There's a thought I'll keep in mind, David. Yesterday was sunny and 70+ degrees, and today I'd planned to plant 25 little Red Cedar trees along our back fence. I ordered the trees from our Conservation Department (40 cents each, woo-hoo), and they just arrived.

Instead we woke up to this: 32 degrees, windy, snowing and sleeting sideways. Sheesh - what an endless winter, those trees sure aren't gonna get planted today.

David, you mentioned earlier about me leaving out Big Beef, and got me thinking about that. The Finnish, Russian, and Slovenian tomatoes folks have sent me are new to me - and that unstable F2 generation of the cross I made back in '09 is REAL unpredictable. It makes sense to grow some tried-and-true productive, flavorful Big Beef tomatoes too - just in case the others don't turn out as well as I hope. Thanks for reminding me of that.

But yeah, yesterday I thought spring was here. This is the view, right now, from our patio, looking across our back yard out toward the barn. My vegetable garden is past the barn, downhill and to the right of the parked pickup truck.

Ozark - the seeds you sent resulted in many great plants - I have two planted out in my raised beds and I will update you will some pictures as they get larger.
I have a question - I noticed that you are growing pepperoncini - I have looked for the pickled ones for years to no avail, many folks on the internet are as well. Do you have a source of those already bottled?

thanks

Keith

Keith, I'm glad the Sweet Ozark Orange seeds I sent produced good plants for you. I'll look forward to pictures and further reports when you have them.

But, I'm confused about your "pickled pepperoncini" question. We lived in California before we moved back to Missouri, and in my experience most every supermarket in both places has pickled pepperoncini in jars. They're always in the pickles section, along with pickled 'cukes, olives, and so forth.

I haven't bought any pepperoncini pickles since I started pickling and canning my own (mine are better!). But, I sure could - in any market. Incidentally, unlike commercial brands, I pickle mine when about half of them are red-ripe - I think the flavor is better that way. I suspect the big companies pickle 'em green because the peppers transport better that way or something. They taste better when red.

But as far as availability, well, maybe I misunderstood the question. Our most common pickle brand here is "Mt. Olive", but I think maybe "Mezzetta" pepperoncinis are more widespread since we see that brand here too - though they're produced in California and are common in the stores there also.

The confusion I believe maybe the fault of the American palate - the pepperoncini I ate since childhood are the dark green ones not the 'golden' ones commonly available today. The last source I had was Mezzetta brand of 'Tuscan Pepperoncini' - they were the dark green ones with a very tart taste. I guess I will have to grow my own and learn how they pickle them or a better alternative - take a trip to Italy.

Keith

Aha, Keith - that explains the confusion. With my 'American' palate I didn't realize that there are different kinds of peperoncini. I just grow 'em and pickle 'em along with many other things from the garden. I love pickles of all descriptions.

I sometimes ferment pickles in a crock, and I had some peperoncini peppers turn out real good when fermented together with small home-grown (Beit Alpha) pickling 'cukes.

Mostly, though, I pickle veggies by brining and canning them, and some garlic, herbs, and hot peppers usually find their ways into the jars for flavor. My standard GOOD pickling brine, the basic mixture from which to start playing and tinkering is:

3 pints distilled white vinegar
1 pint apple cider vinegar
3 pints filtered, bottled, or boiled water (no chlorine)
7 tablespoons Kosher salt

And yes, grow your own peppers and other veggies for pickling, for sure. The quality and variety of 'garden pickles' is much better than what you can buy.

Thanks for the pickling recipe - I will have to grow some pepperoncini and give it a try. I have one jar left from about 12 years ago - just can't eat the last few!! For awhile I had Mezzetta ship them to me but then alas they ran out and they are nowhere to be found.
On a happy note I planted my last tomato yesterday - 75 in all with 46 varieties!

Keith

I installed this over my tomato bed last evening. It's a Mittleider T-Frame that converts to an in-the-bed greenhouse when necessary.

Either tomorrow or Saturday, I'll finish boxing in the top with 2x4s and screwing 45° PVC couplers to the inside faces of the two long sides. Then, I'll bend 3/4" PVC pipe over the top to make a roof. That'll get covered for sun protection.

The whole thing can then be walled in on 3 sides, wrapping either greenhouse plastic (for the fall - early seedling starts in the bed), shade cloth (spr/summer), or Remay (frost protection in winter) around, and then a piece for a front door.

It's a a labor of love --- love of VEGGIES, LOL!

#1 T-Frame in progress
#2 T-Frame up view 1
#3 T-Frame up view 2
#4 ldsprepper's T-Frame with canopy on top
#5 ldsprepper's T-Frame with greenhouse plastic and vertical lines for climbers

Grab some popcorn for the videos below, LOL! Enjoy!

link to ldsprepper's T-Frame construction tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CLWdctgzOA&index=6&list=PLCxrB0SIHkCWhzg93bgaFyydxzdoAmvzZ

T-Frame Canopy construction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzuIFTfRnEc&list=PLCxrB0SIHkCWhzg93bgaFyydxzdoAmvzZ&index=16

In-Garden Greenhouse, How to Build
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG5ZWXbdxL0&list=PLCxrB0SIHkCWhzg93bgaFyydxzdoAmvzZ&index=17

I transplanted my tomato seedlings up into cut-off drinking water bottles today. Thanks again for that idea, Gymgirl.

A further bright idea I had: When I transplant these into the garden next month and before I take these trays outdoors, I'm going to use my Dremel tool to carefully cut around each bottle - at the bottom edge of the label this time. That will leave a plastic ring around the top of each root ball, which coincidentally has the variety name written on it. That ring can be moved UP the stem when I plant these seedlings deep, and I'll position each ring sticking up out of the soil to protect against cutworms. Cutworms are bad around here when I first put young seedlings out - if there's no protection, a lot of seedlings get cut right off at the soil level.

I'm going to wait awhile before transplanting my peppers up into water bottles. Some of those are still tiny - I had a new one sprout just this morning, 21 days after I planted the seed!

For tomatoes, I ended up with 11 Sweet Ozark Orange, 5 F2 generation of the original cross (seeds saved in 2010), 2 Nevas (from Finland), 4 Tarasenko Pink (from Ukraine by way of Finland), and 7 Big Beef. Sadly, none of the Donaci Dolenjski tomatoes from Slovenia came up - but two varieties of Slovenian sweet peppers did!

My "little" forest is soooooo ready for the last frost!!!!

That post would be so much better with a picture!