I Need To Get Busy This Weekend

Our Spring crop of tomatoes and peppers that I planted in early January are still under the grow lights in the utility room.  This weekend I will have to stop putting off transplanting them into larger containers.  As you can see, they are growing tall and are touching the fluorescent bulbs. 

There are two seedlings in each container that will have to be separated and placed in their own pot.  It is going to be a little tricky to separate them as their roots have grown together.  I usually use a plastic fork to help untangle as much as I can.  Some roots will be broken, but the plant will be okay as long as most of the roots are fine. 

The other thing I need to do is to begin watering them with a diluted solution of fish emulsion to give them some "get up and go."  Some of the tomato leaves are turning an unhealthy color and that means that they need some nutrients.  Fish emulsion, which is simply ground up fish that is dried and pulverized into a powder is just the ticket.  It doesn't smell good, but once that fish powder is mixed with water and poured on the young plants, they really like it!  They turn a healthy green and by the time they are ready to go into the garden, they are strong and vigorous.

I have a number of different tomato and pepper heirloom varieties planted.  Peppers take longer to germinate, so they are smaller than the tomatoes, but I'll put them in individual pots so they don't get root bound.

We still have several weeks (maybe a month) until we reach our average last frost date, so we still have a ways to go before the plants will be transplanted into the garden.  They'll need to be hardened off on the back patio to acclimate them to the cold and wind.  But, I'm wondering if we'll ever dry up enough to plant this spring.  Tricia remarked as she slogged through the mud out to the barn that it is the wettest, nastiest, muddiest that it has ever been.  Hopefully, we can keep these guys growing indoors healthy until the weather gets right outside.

These are farther along than they were last year.  However, my eggplant seed did not germinate, so we'll be buying eggplant from the nursery this year versus growing them from seed.  It is supposed to rain for the next several days, but I can get gardening done on the back patio where the rain won't bother me or the plants.  This weekend will be a busy weekend transplanting a bunch of seedlings into individual containers.  Then they'll go back under the grow light until conditions are right outside.