Monday, March 15, 2010

Plant watch 2010 - grow vegetables from seeds



Like last year, I am growing most of the vegetables for my garden from seeds. I decided to wait one extra week before I started them because of all of the snow we received this winter. I figured it would take an extra week to dry up.

I planted my tomato and pepper plants yesterday. I use Better Boy and Roma tomatoes and bell, jalepeno and banana peppers.

I want maybe 15 plants of each kind of tomato, 3 plants of each kind of pepper. I needed to buy 2 packets of Better Boy seeds. I got 30 plantings out of those two packets. I plant each seed individually instead of a couple seeds in each spot because when you plant a few seeds in each spot you waste some because you then have to go and thin them out later. This way if the seed sprouts, I can use it. If it doesn't in that spot....oh well. I planted 30 when I want 15 because every seed will not sprout and some will probably die. If I have extras I can give them to family.

Peppers and the roma seed packets come with so many seeds in each packet. You will only need one packet unless you want a TON of peppers. Each pepper plant yields a lot of peppers so this is why you don't need so many plants.

I planted the extra seeds that come in the packets because I figured I had the seeds and am going to spend the time growing them - I might as well plant them and give them to family. Maybe some year in the near future I can start a little mini greenhouse operation. Plants have gotten so expensive to buy in stores that I'm sure I could sell quite a few!

Last year I used peat pods to start my seeds. This year I just put a layer of dirt in the bottom of my greenhouse trays, put seeds in, covered with dirt and misted with a water sprayer. I will then transplant them later into individual containers.

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