Starting tomatoes and peppers

I took so many pictures of the seed-starting process the first time around, but in subsequent weeks when I started tomatoes and peppers, I took none. Oh well! The process looked the same!

For tomatoes and peppers, since I'd planned on buying transplants when I made my seed order, we picked out varieties that we knew we liked or that looked good when we were in gardening centers. I wanted to use open-pollinated varieties whenever that was an option.

For tomatoes, we purchased three types: first, an heirloom called "Italian roma," purchased because we knew romas were good for canning and it was an heirloom. The seed company, Botanical Interests, looked like it was in line with our priorities. Second, cherokee purple, also from Botanical Interests, purchased because we've eaten them before and loved them. Third, brandywine, purchased from Livingston seeds. There wasn't much info on the packet but surprisingly, this was the only seed company we could find that carried brandywine in the three stores we went to. We planned to plant out roughly 10 of the italian romas, 5 of the cherokee purples, and 5 of the brandywine, saving two spots for buying a couple of transplants at the farmers market (one cherry tomato, one that was a duplicate of one of our varieties so that we can compare quality. this will help us decide whether to start our own seeds again next year).

For peppers, we bought a packet from Botanical Interests of an heirloom called "Yolo Wonder" and a packet from Livingston seeds that contained five different varieties of bell peppers, all different colors.

Taking the last frost date as around May 15th for our county, we followed the direction on the seed packets for when to start them. Around March 1st we started a carton of Yolo Wonder peppers and a second carton of celery. Once again the celery (Utah Improved from Territorial) germinated excellently. The Yolo Wonder peppers were a little bit slower than what the packet said, and one of the cells failed to germinate.

Around March 15th we started three cartons worth of tomatoes, one of each variety. The romas germinated very well, but both the cherokee purple and the brandywine seemed to struggle. The germination was slower than what the packet predicted, and it was greatly staggered. At first it looked like my germination rates were around 20%, but then I began heating the small room they were in to 80 degrees and more began to sprout. Probably two weeks after the first seedlings appeared, more seedlings continued to appear.

Around April 15th I started my last two cartons: one for the Rainbow Bell peppers, and one for more tomatoes since I wasn't satisfied with the germination. These germination rates were similar for the tomatoes, but even worse for the rainbow bell peppers. For a long time it looked like I would only get four plants out of the 12 cells I planted! Very slowly, as weeks went by, I think all of the cells eventually germinated - even as late as June 1st, I was seeing additional seedlings poke through.

For tomatoes and peppers, I tried to thin each cell to one seedling pretty quickly - as soon as they had their first true leaves (first true leaves for peppers came in pairs, tomatoes came individually).