Now is the best time to start your spring crop of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. You may not realize it, but at this time of the year it takes about six weeks to have a transplant from seed ready for the garden in March. If the winter is warm, you might be able have the plants ready in four weeks but don't count on it.
Here is the big question - what varieties do you grow? Looking through the Tomato Growers Supply Catalog, a Florida company, (on line at tomatogrowers.com) you can select from about 400 varieties but which ones are for you? Do you want small fruits, large fruits or fruits of different colors? Well, here is what I like to grow. You might try the ones listed below and then select one or two others. Ones with an 'N' have some nematode resistance. Almost all are indeterminate, unless noted, which means they grow and fruit for months. Determinate types set their fruit, mature a crop and then gradually decline.
Cherry types - always reliable:
- Sweet Treat - larger of the small types
- Sweet Chelsea - N
- Sweet Million - N
- Solid Gold - orange & a favorite
- Juliet Hybrid
Slicers:
- Big Beef - N
- Champion - N
- Early Girl - first to ripen
- Bella Rosa - N - determinate
- Mountain Merit - N - determinate but lasted a long time
- Park's Whopper - N - must order from Park's Seeds
Starting you own plants is easy. I like to use saved cell packs or small pots. Each is filled with a potting mix or seed germination mix. The germination mixtures are best for the very small seeds but I use the potting mix for tomatoes, peppers and such. Sow one or two seeds in each cell or small pot. Then here is what you do.
Now, it is a temptation, but the window is not the best place to grow your seedlings. They want the very highlight levels and that is normally outdoors or in a greenhouse. Move them in and out as needed to protect them from the cold and bad weather. Remember at this time of the year it takes about six weeks to produce a transplant for the garden.
Better start your tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants soon to have transplants for the March garden.
- Keep the planted containers moist
- Keep in filtered to full sun until they germinate
- Then give them a full sun location.
- Start feedings with a half strength water-soluble fertilizer solution when about a week old.
- Feed weekly.
- Remove all but one seedling per cell or transplant when small.
- Let them continue to grow until the size you normally see in the stores and they are then ready for the garden.
Now, it is a temptation, but the window is not the best place to grow your seedlings. They want the very highlight levels and that is normally outdoors or in a greenhouse. Move them in and out as needed to protect them from the cold and bad weather. Remember at this time of the year it takes about six weeks to produce a transplant for the garden.
Better start your tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants soon to have transplants for the March garden.
