72 Days

Or 10 weeks and 2 days.  Or 2 months and 13 days.  We planted all of our tomatoes (and peppers and eggplant) from seed on January 1st.  72 days later we put them in the ground.  The plants were healthy and green, tall and vigorous, yearning to leave the confines of the seed pots and stretch out their root system in good soil.

I used some baling twine to stretch from one side of the garden to the other.  Then I raked away the wood chips until I got to soil.  The twine enables me to plant the seedlings in a straight row.  It is not necessary to have straight rows, but I like order.  I planted 5 rows of tomatoes, 18 inches apart.  This allowed me to have 13 tomato plants per row, 65 tomato plants total.

I used a shovel to open a slightly deep hole and tossed a handful of biochar inoculated with composted cow manure in the bottom of the hole.  Then Russ planted the tomato, burying it up to the bottom leaves.  The 'leggy' stem will become part of the root system of the plant.  Then Tricia followed behind, pulling the wood chip mulch around the plant to preserve soil moisture and block out weed growth that might compete with the tomato for nutrients.

I planted the following varieties of heirloom, indeterminate tomatoes: 

Black Krim                Black Vernisage            Big Rainbow            Pink Brandywine

Mortgage Lifter        Roma                              Chadwick Cherry    Creole

Cherokee Purple    

Then I planted the peppers, two varieties of of each:

Anaheim        Chocolate        Lipstick        Lilac        Banana        Emerald        Horizon

Then, very far away, in the front of the garden so they don't cross pollinate, I planted six Jalapeno plants - 3 hot jalapenos and 3 Craig's Grande (a big variety for making poppers)  Finally, I planted 3 Florida Market Eggplant.

I climbed on top of the wood chip pile in the back of the garden to capture the newly planted tomatoes, peppers and eggplant and to get a look at the entire garden.

You can see the onion plants in the photo.  They are looking better at this stage than in prior years, believe it or not, after being concerned that the freeze killed them.  We have lots of beets, carrots, chard, kale, kohlrabi to harvest in order to make room for beans, corn, squash, cucumbers, etc.  We'll get to some of that maybe this next weekend.