Tomatoes, Peppers & Strawberries ... oh my!

Hard to tell, but this is 36 Tomato plants, there are 2 types of Beefsteak, 1 Brandywine and 2 types of Cherry.

Doux de Espagne & Purple Beauty Peppers

Strawberries ~ from seed, there are 7 of 11 coming up!

Even after dropping the dang peat pots with the strawberry seedlings in them (butterfingers to me), I have 7 beauties growing nicely. Lost the other 4, not sure if they were up or not as I dropped the tray on the way to the counter to check and water them!

I also have an order in for 24 strawberry plants of a different variety, that will come in soon.

I still need to get my banana pepper seeds into trays and germinate them. I will do that today.

It is also time to transplant all those 36 tomato seedlings into larger little pots, until time to put them into their summer containers.

I want to transplant as soon as they get about 4" high, otherwise, the root base can over grow the peat pot, once they become root bound they have a tendency to set little blooms (too early) and they need to grow up strong and tall before fruiting. ~ If you buy from a greenhouse, buy tomato plants without blooms if you can, otherwise pinch them off before transplanting. This will give your plant a better chance to set nice roots in your pot/in the ground at home before it tries to set fruit blooms.

Happy Spring! It is a gorgeous day here. I am going to try and get a couple of containers ready for the deck over the next few days. I won't put anything out until mid to late April. I do better if I have everything ready for the little seedlings ahead of time. I want to have my deck space and containers planned out, so I know what I may still need to purchase or prepare. I still have a lot of seed packets to sow directly into containers when the weather warms up.