Getting Ready For Tomatoes and Peppers

I'm definitely dreaming about tomatoes and missing fresh ones so much that I actually succumbed to the temptation to buy a small tub of good looking dark striped grape tomatoes. And that experience has got me more motivated than ever to get the tomato growing process into full swing because those beauties were pretty blah.

Tomatoes and peppers are such a high priority for me that I devote one of my four beds just to them. I put the most effort into preparing that bed starting with a cover crop that I sow in winter.

I usually get the cover crop sown into the tomato/pepper bed sometime in January but this year the exceptionally wet weather kept me out of the garden a lot so I didn't get the bed cleared until later than usual. And then I found that one end of the bed was a mass of invading oak tree roots so I had to dig it out and extend the root barrier up the sides of the bed. But before I could do any major digging I had to cover the bed with a huge piece of heavy duty greenhouse plastic to allow it to dry a bit. Anyway, I finally got a cover crop sown by early February.

February 18

This year I used a mix of Kodiak mustard,  peas and oats, favas from an old packet of seeds, and some saved pea seeds from a variety that I don't grow anymore because of their susceptibility to powdery mildew when they mature.

March 22

The cover crop grew quickly and in just over a month was tall enough to turn in, if I had had the time and the weather had been dry enough. So it continued to grow...

April 19

And finally, nearly a month later the weather dried enough and I had the time to sharpen the hedge trimmers and get to work.

 

Whack, whack, whack, half way there.

All cut and ready to dig in the next day. And of course I woke up the next morning to rain, again, which was totally not in the forecast. So the digging waited another day or so...

April 22

Finally all dug in and almost ready for rot and worms to take over.

April 23

The last thing I do is to cover the entire bed with cardboard. Near the end of May I will remove the cardboard, pull back the drip lines again (they are turned off for now), and dig in compost, pulverized egg shells (a year of collecting), and my usual mix of organic amendments that I dig in before planting. The mix of amendments has change over time, the current mix includes organic soybean meal, feather meal, fishmeal, rock phosphate, kelp meal, azomite, and gypsum.

The mix of tomatoes has changed a bit from last year. There's more cherry tomatoes in the lineup this year. I've found that I really enjoy them dried, especially the ones that I season, and Dave eats a lot of them fresh, he takes a baggieful in his lunch most days in season. Here's the lineup, new varieties are marked with *:

Chianti Rose pink beefsteak
Green Bee crunchy when ripe green cherry*
Jaune Flamme orange salad type
Jazz* pink beefsteak with yellow stripes
Marzano Fire* red with yellow stripes paste
Mavritanskite brown beefsteak
Pantano red beefsteak
Piccolo Dattero red cherry
Purple Bumblebee* purple with green stripes cherry
Sunrise Bumblebee* yellow with pink marbling and yellow stripes cherry
Sweet Gold yellow cherry

You can read the detailed descriptions of each variety here, the seeds sources are also listed.

I sowed my tomato seeds on April 5 and just yesterday I potted most of them up into 3-inch pots. The target date for getting them into the garden is June 1.

My grow list for peppers in 2017 is quite ambitious again. There's a number of favorites returning and some that were new last year but that I didn't really get to try properly because of the raiding rodents, and there's a bunch of new ones that are marked with *.

Seasoning:
Aji Amarillo Grande
Aji Angelo
Aji Golden*
Baby Aji Amarillo
Caribbean Seasoning*
Craig's Grande Jalapeño
Ethiopian Brown*
Habanada*
Hungarian Magyar Paprika*
Joe's Giant Aji Amarillo*

Sweet:
Ajvarski*
Florina Greek
Gogosar
IPK P 262 (Turkey)
Lady Bell
Odessa Market
Ometepe
Petite Marseillais
Rosso Dolce da Appendere
Shepherd's Ramshorn
Topepo Giallo*
Violet Sparkle

You can read the descriptions of each variety here.

I pre-germinated all the pepper seeds on April 6, setting them on moist paper towels enclosed in plastic baggies. Many of them had germinated and were ready to sow into 2.5-inch pots by April 15. Then it took a few more days for the seedlings to emerge. The peppers are so slow to grow, they still haven't developed any true leaves yet.

I like the pre-germination method of starting peppers (thank you for the idea Margaret!). It takes so long for pepper seedlings to emerge from the soil that by the time I realize that there are germination issues it may be too late to sow a second round. Germinating the seeds on paper towels allows me to see if there are issues so that I can sow more seeds if necessary. That is especially helpful considering that I start my seeds fairly late and most of the peppers that I grow aren't varieties that I can just go out and buy.

Many of the seeds I sow get started indoors, some on a heat mat, some not. The summer veggies in particular seem to need the warmth to get off to a good or at least faster start. But as soon as the seedlings emerge I set them outside during the day. That gets them accustomed to natural sunlight right away and keeps the seedlings from getting weak and leggy. On rainy days they still go outside but they sit in a protected alcove. I bring them inside at night where they are protected from bugs and rodents and the heat lovers get to sleep on that cozy heat mat. Eventually the tomatoes and peppers will get to be outside day and night before I plant them in the garden, but I do put them into a jury rigged mini greenhouse to protect them at night.

I think I'm off to a pretty good start to the tomato and pepper season but I know that there's so much that can go wrong between now and harvest time. I don't even want to think about that... Keeping my fingers crossed!