April 9th, Garden Update and Transplanting Tomatoes...

The snow is slowly but surely disappearing. I'm really hoping to see some spring bulbs emerging in the next couple weeks. We have seen our first robins and Canada geese this past week!

With the weather being a little warmer, I've been able to leave some of the hardier plants like onions, broccoli and heartsease in the greenhouse overnight, which has freed up some space in the house for more seedlings! So far I've planted Aztec Sweet and Only the Lonely nicotiana, Dwarf 10 Week stocks, and Cherry Caramel phlox. 
The cabbage, broccoli, rhubarb, horehound, lemon balm and petunias all came up about a week ago, but I had a clumsy moment and dropped the cabbage, so that will have to be re-planted. 

Rhubarb seedlings

Peppers

The heliotope got moved into individual cups yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had more than I thought (26 plants)! ​

Heliotrope on the kitchen windowsill this morning

Vigourous, healthy tomato seedlings are one of the joys of Spring that I cannot be without. I think I would plant a few even if there was no hope of getting any tomatoes to ripen later! They are such pretty plants, and the next best thing to eating a homegrown heirloom tomato, is the wonderful aroma you get on your fingers after gently handling the hairy stems. 

I just transplanted my tomatoes from the 3 ounce cups they were started in, to 8 ounce cups...

A tomato seedling that has outgrown its container

They were already starting to get root bound

I put just a little bit of potting soil on the bottom of the new container, then fill around the root ball of the plant. Tomatoes will grow new roots from the stem, so they can be buried to the first set of leaves.

After being transplanted

Remember to label the new containers if you are growing more than 1 variety, unless you want to be surprised later! Sometimes it's fun to be surprised, but since I'm planning to save seed, I need to know which variety is which before they set fruit. 
Growing a few different varieties of peppers and tomatoes and comparing their germination and growth has been very interesting this spring! For example, all of the Mehmet's Sweet Turkish peppers germinated, while only about 8 out of 15 Ajvarski peppers germinated! (In my experience, it is quite unusual for all the pepper seeds to sprout anyway). I also noticed that the Hungarian Heart tomato was slower to germinate than both the Pantano Romanesco and Black Krim tomatoes, and the plants are smaller and less vigorous. We'll see what happens with yields later on!

All done!