Spring Tomatoes & Potatoes

The weather is getting really nice, although still a little cool out as lows will be in the 30's this weekend.  I'll try to turn some soil and see if things are still too wet to get anything done in the garden.  It won't be long before it will be time to plant the Spring garden.  Let's take a look at the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant that I planted from seed on January 1st.

Here are some seedlings that I've re-potted into some larger containers and they reside on top of the freezer in the utility room.  With a Sharpie and some freezer tape, I've labeled each container as to the name of the plant as I have 7 different types of heirloom tomatoes planted and 5 different types of peppers.  They are all growing, but won't really take off until they are outside under the sunshine.  I'll have to 'harden them off' first.  This is a process where you bring them out and leave them for a while to acclimate them to being outdoors (sun, cold, wind).  Each day you gradually increase the amount of time they are outside.  If you don't do this, you'll put them into shock.  I'll probably start this process pretty soon.


Seedlings growing...

You can see the tomato plants reaching upward growing toward the fluorescent light.  I water them daily.  I want to try and get them in the garden soil outside as soon as I can.

Tomato seedlings

You say po-tay-toe, I say pa-tah-toe...

Tricia picked up some seed potatoes from the local feed store the other day.  She got mostly red potatoes, but threw in a few white potatoes for good measure.  I absolutely love new potatoes.  You know the ones that are about the size of a golf ball?  Put a few of those in a pot with some fresh green beans and a dollop of butter and you've got some mighty fine eatin'.  Here is a bag of seed potatoes.  I inspected them to make sure that there were no rotten places and they all look good.


Seed Potatoes

You want to inspect them to make sure that the seed potatoes have 'eyes', or good healthy sprouts.  Here is a good example of a healthy sprout on a potato.  A good seed potato will yield several healthy new potato plants.

Potato with a good sprout

On the potato below I'm cutting it so that it will make several new potato plants.  I just cut them so that I have one eye or healthy sprout for each chunk of potato.  You can see that each half has a good eye on it.  You want to ensure that when you cut the potato, you leave 10 - 14 days before planting them in the dirt so that the potato can heal and form a callous or scab.  If you don't do this, you run the risk of the potato rotting when you plant it. 

Cutting the seed potatoes

These are the red potatoes that I have cut into individual chunks that are healing:


Red seed potatoes all cut up and healing up

And here are the white potatoes:


White seed potatoes cut up and healing

My plan is to get them in the ground at the latest on Sunday, March 10th, which gives them 10 days to heal up.  I checked the Farmer's Almanac and March 6th and 7th are good days for planting root crops, so I'll plant on those days if the potatoes have scabbed nicely by then.