Tomatoes, peppers, and herbs!
Why are tomatoes and peppers so hard to grow from seed? I've heard a few people express some frustration or say that they always just buy seedlings from Home Depot or another nursery.
I planted 36 tomato seeds in a Jiffy professional greenhouse kit (shown below with a misting bottle) and nursed them to seedlings indoors, then transferred the ones that grew at least 2-3 leaves to buckets, bringing them indoors on chilly nights.
About 20 reached the bucket stage. A few drowned in a rainstorm (and this was entirely my fault) and the rest became all long and spindly and their stems broke within a few days after sprouting. Maybe lack of sunlight was the problem?
Of these surviving plants, 14 did well enough to be transferred to the garden, and here they are! I'm just wondering if having two plants using the same stake is a problem. It may be best to replant some of them elsewhere, assuming the roots aren't intertwined already. They seem to be liking the soil and sunshine though!
The hot peppers and sweet peppers were grown using the same process, but had a higher survival rate. I think I only lost 5 or 6 of them. We're going to have sooo much cayenne, jalapeño, and habanero for seasoning! These are either jalapeño or habanero plants:
(If you're wondering why I don't know which, it's because they got mixed up when I transplanted them, so I told my family we'll have to just see what grows and be surprised. Ha.)
And while we're on the topic of seasoning, here's the little herb garden I planted in a separate part of the yard. These aren't from seed, but they were tiny seedlings when I got them. I love the vibrant green of the sweet basil on the right. It looks like it should be growing somewhere in the Mediterranean.
There's almost too much mint to harvest, even if I make tea, a cocktail, and one or two recipes every week. We have peppermint, chocolate mint, spearmint, and sweet mint:
The leaves of one of the sweet mint plants seem to get spotty if I don't harvest them fast enough. There are very few leaves that look like this (maybe 5), so I think the plant is healthy overall, but just in case...
Does anyone know what this is? Is it supposed to happen when leaves get old? Looks suspicious to me...
You all gave me a plethora of good ideas for dealing with cabbage moths after my last post. Maybe I can put the same spray(s) on this plant. I'm off to do research and some weeding. :-)
Cheers!
summersolstice
You'll definitely need space for the tomatoes! 14 plants will be a ton of tomatoes!
and I think the markings on the mint are from 4-lined bug. When small, they are red dots, but they grow to have 4 black lines with yellow in between - about a quarter inch long. A quick search and you'll find info (the link I found didn't work here for some reason).
I think I'll move some of them then. I'm planning on expanding the garden anyway, to add some squash, cucumber, and eggplant. We may do some canning this summer too, since we're going to be swamped with tomatoes!
Dang it. I thought it was probably another bug...
You can spray horticultural oil or insecticidal soap to get rid of bugs. both are safe for mammals.
I use Neem Oil to get rid of my pest. Goes a long way especially if you buy the concentrated bottle and it's safe and non-toxic.
Thanks!
I've got way more experience with chillis ("peppers") than tomatoes, but they are quite similar in terms of what they need, and generally lack of light makes the plants grow tall and weak. From growing a few tomatoes this and last year, they are much faster growers and seem to grow taller in any case and fail to support their own weight. My two largest tomato plants are maybe 50-60 cm tall now, and would not stand straight without support (a thread loosely wrapped around the stem, hanging from a nail high on a wall).
If I had to make a guess, the chillis you have in the pictures are Jalapeños, since the leaves look more like C. annuum to me than C. chinense (which Habaneros are). A great way to germinate both tomato and chilli seeds is what we call a "raft" here in Finland: Take a container that can hold some water and has tall walls, wrap a couple sheets of paper towel around a piece of styrofoam or some other floating material, place the foam in the container, add some water and place the seeds on top of the floating foam/paper raft. This way the seeds will have moisture steadily but not drown, and you can easily keep plenty of water in the container since the foam will float on top. You can even draw boxes on the paper towels with a pen to mark which seeds are where. To increase the humidity poke some small holes in plastic film (the kind used for wrapping foods) and put the film on top of the container to have a makeshift mini greenhouse. Once the seeds germinate, you can carefully transfer them directly to a pot or a Jiffy. If you let the roots grow too much they'll go through the paper towel and may get damaged when removing the seed, so you may want to add a layer of coffee filter between the paper towel and the seeds (and draw on the filter, if you wish).
I've never found tomatoes particularly hard to germinate to grow from seed but I just find they are WAY easier to grow from cuttings. The stems grow roots so easily I just keep plants going and going from taking suckers from older plants...