Tuesday, April 7, 2009

On The Come Up

Oh boy..... oh boy. Sweet and hot peppers have started sprouting a couple of weeks ago. Last week up came the cherry tomatoes... though I had them in a dark place and wasn't watching, and now they're leggy. And this morning: tiny basil leaves were peeping from the soil. But the mint pot remains barren. I thought mint was supposed to be hardy?

Not all the seeds sprouted. Good thing I planted several seeds to fall back on. But now I wish I planted more.

For the past few weeks, I've been searching for second-hand containers. So far, I bought 2 Wild Turkey whiskey half-barrels, found 1 cracked terracotta pot on the curb, and had 3 clay pots donated from a generous Craigslister. But I still need lots more... at least 6 medium/large containers, mostly for planting greens (kale, mustard, chard).

Top photo, from L-R: tomato (Riesentraube), tomato (Yellow Currant and Black Cherry), pepper (Hot Fish), mint, pepper (sweet Purple Beauty).
Bottom photo: basil (Spicy Globe) --- barely visible sprouts
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3 comments:

Rika said...

I have a bunch of tomatoes now too - not many yellow ones, though. I've heard that its good to pinch off one of the two pepper leaves (the little false ones that I can't remember the name of) and also of the first couple of pairs of true leaves. It's supposed to make them stronger...

Minda said...

Oh, but it seems so cruel. Thanks for the tip... maybe I'll try it on a couple of the plants. It'll hurt me more than it'll hurt them.

Rika said...

And one more thing - those "leggy" tomatoes... When you move them into bigger containers, you can bury the stem in the soil - all the way up to the top leaves (cut the leaves off the stem you're going to burry, though). Tomatoes have this capacity to grow more roots from their stems.