Mistakes and Otherwise

[digitS']

I was just thinking about sharing some of these problems and Joe must have had some of those same thoughts when he posted this, today!

https://joegardener.com/podcast/tomato-seedling-mistakes/

I'm taking exception to a little of this while bowing to these two for their greater expertise. First off, I guess that I agree that "Experience is Your Best Teacher" ... however ... I'd much prefer to learn from others' mistakes than from my own .

I'm not planning to begin hardening off my tomatoes when they are as immature as Joe's. Certainly, I won't be wanting to risk their loss in temperatures in the 30's. I can attest to the fact that a plant that has never experienced temperatures lower than 60 degrees can die at 37. Probably not every tomato plant nor every variety - mine didn't all die but some can and will. Okay, what about if they become accustomed to lower temperatures slowly? They would probably have been fine.

What got me thinking about less-than-optimal plants because of less-than-optimal conditions was moving seedlings today out of their community containers into 4-packs. Some have had quite a struggle this year. And, I'm not the only one with plants like that!

I've followed Craig LeHoullier for several years. He was just noting his plants slow growth this year because of cold weather in North Carolina. Craig says that he expects rapid growth once conditions warm Then, Joe Lamp'l posts on his experiences, today.

Here's the deal with me: I have several containers with plants of substandard size for the length of time that they have been in that soil. I have been patient enuf! They have been too confined and too crowded in the same soil for too long. It's time for a move.

I was mostly moving peppers and eggplant, today. Heat-lovers, even more so than tomatoes, some of them have really not been very happy with the cool, cloudy conditions in the greenhouse. Just like Craig, I expect them to recover. Why? Because they have the most amazing roots!

Peppers always impress me with their root development but this is true with all three of the tiny things, including the substandard eggplants and tomatoes. Their roots are about as well developed as any of these plants on any other year. With better conditions, the top growth might be twice what it is for some of them this year. Still, I expect them to do okay. I even found myself moving a few pepper seedlings with only seed leaves to the 4-packs! Usually, I'd toss them but their sisters weren't in all that much better condition and they all had such good roots! ... well anyway, I saved 3 and will tell you how they are doing in a few days.

digitS'
who can be mercilessly in culling

 

[flowerbug]

last year one of the pepper plants got chewed right off by something, it eventually grew and had a few peppers on it, but nothing like what the rest did. i also had one plant that was nearly chewed through completely, but i propped it up with a few sticks (almost like a splint on a broken limb) and it healed up and gave plenty of fruit. if you are hard pressed for space you are likely better off replacing a damaged plant if you have one available. i've had entire plantings of peppers drop their leaves and recover to go on and give plenty of results. they were not chewed off, just had a snap frost which took them down for a week. i did cover them up but it was so cold they still dropped leaves. i think had i not covered them it would have taken a few weeks to recover instead of just the one week it took. around here a full week out a growing season is a good percentage, but it also seems that once the heat comes on that plants will catch up to the others around them.

tomatoes, i would not care if they get tall/leggy before planting out, just plant them deeper and they root out and that also gives them more protection against dry spells.

 

[digitS']

Leggy plants are hard to move around. I've just been out turning flats in the greenhouse. Not only have some been banned from the high shelf much above my head but some have to be banned from near the floor because my clumsy feet may kick them if they flop into the aisle.

This is something @seedcorn may appreciate, re. Benjamin Bunny in the Garden.

He showed up one night and ate every single leaf off my broccoli transplants. There must have been well more than a dozen. I remember being discouraged at what the neighbors had allowed to happen ()! After a day or 2, I ventured out there with a bag of high N organic fertilizer and a rake. After sprinkling a good amount of fertilizer around each plant, I raked soil over the fertilizer. I had a very good broccoli harvest! (Benjamin may have moved on to the neighbor's garden.) The growth was delayed so that some plants didn't make buds until fall but the plants were huge by then, with nice, big heads.

Steve
willing to cull Benjamin but has to garden near neighbors

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know about Seed but I appreciate the story.

 

[ducks4you]

Don't think leggy tomato seedlings are a big problem bc you can bury them up to the top leaves. This year I am testing/planting all of my old seeds. Don't have that many of them, just enough to use up. Somehow I have about 7 of these tomato seed packages that somebody gave me who Knows how many years ago. They are packaged in plastic and housed in red, plastic eggs and labeled "pole tomatoes." They would be very good candidates to test out any tomato seed growing techniques bc I didn't have to buy them.
Speaking of this, I wonder if I save the red eggs and put them under the growing tomato plants if it will encourage them to flower and bear fruit, just like plastic eggs in the nest box encourages your hens to lay?
I thought the experiment with LED lighting was interesting. I LOVE how LED's give you super bright lighting, especially since I need to wear reading glasses now.
Think I will wait until April to try and start the New Yorker tomatoes from 2018.