A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 First plants in the garden

Tomatoes, strawberries, and raspberries

Yesterday I got my 7 earliest tomato plants in the ground. 5 of them were in 8 inch pots. The other 2 were lagging, they were only in 4 inchers. I planted:

Big Rainbow

Brandywine

Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter

Moscvich

New Girl

Oregon spring

The seventh plant was the lone seedling that came up in a pot that was supposed to be serrano peppers????

I used a shovel to dig the holes and added one shovel full of compost mixed with 1/4 cup of eggshell powder, 1/4 cup of powdered milk, and 1/4 cup of epsom salt. Then after I planted the tomatoes, I sprinkled 2 tbsp. of powdered milk around each plant. This is supposed to help prevent fungual problems.

I'm going to protect the 6 known varieties with wall o' waters. The "serrano" tomato will have to make do with row cover and plastic.

I also planted my new Earliglow and Sparkle strawberries and Bristol black raspberries.

I soaked all the fruits in Super Thrive before planting and then dipped the roots in water with Agri-gel in it. (free sample packet) The little grains of gelatin swell way up absorbing many times their weight in water. They adhere to the roots when you dip the plants and help elimate transplant shock by making sure there is plenty of moisture available to the plant roots. I watered all the plants in with the Super Thrive I had dipped them in.

Virginia is for Lovers..plants.

I am Pennsylvania.... Put out Brussel sprouts, parsley and flowering kale.. SO far they love it .

I wait till may to put tomatoes out, but might try knowing you did already.. Mine are in the flower beds.. Onion sets also.

Happy gardening.

dodge

Dodge, I only plant a few varieties this early and only with protection. I won't put my main crop of tomatoes out till late April or early May.

broccolli, butterlettuce , collard green , cabbage, starters JV gave me have reaaaaly grown since I put in a few weeks ago!



Won't be long now and yummy yummy

Beautiful! I'm jealous. My broccoli looks nothing like that. And I STILL haven't planted spinach.

I hope we don't have another cold snap because I planted almost every flower seeds I had today. seeds from TK, Frannie, Weezie, tcmers, jonni and a lot of other wonderful people. I planted because the batchelor buttons that came back from last year are getting ready to bloom already. This has been the wierdest year. I also put out some radishes, some cucumber seeds, tomato seeds, and potatoes.

Bestofour, I think we'll be okay for the next week and a half at least. I just checked the NWS forecast and they're calling for lows here of 33 Monday and Tuesday nights, but warming afterwards. The Weather Channel online shows low temps warming back up into the 40s for here, so you shouldn't have temps any where near freezing.

Thanks Terry. We got a good rain today so that's good. Did you order your strawberry plants online? I can't find any around here.

Yes, I once had a catalog from this company (I think I read about it in a magazine article listing a bunch of different nurseries). I was impressed by their selection of strawberries, but lost the catolog and forgot the name before I ever got around to ordering any plants. I found them again in an online search.

Nourse Farms

Terry,

Great tomato list, you should be happy with those. I'm growing Moskvich for the first time this year as well. It's supposed to be a cool weather tolerant, early salad-sized tomato (4-6 oz).

someday I'm going to get my timing right. But, it hasn't happened yet. The tomatoes and Bell peppers are outside. The paparika peppers are still inside. More because I ran out of space outside and haven't figured out what to do about it then for any other reason. shallots are still inside for the same reason. In fact with the possible exception on the celosia that may be the reason everything is indoors that's here at this point.

I just planted 4 varieties of tomatoes a week ago, and they are doing great - temps at the beach have only been going down into the low 50's at night. I also planted some stawberries, which are doing great as well. i have some squash and cuc's inside, not sure when to put them out, i think its a little chilly still.

oh! and i also put out bell peppers, can't wait for those

eClaire, what kind of strawberries did you plant? I just bought some plants and the man told me they should have been planted in October to produce this year.

Bestofour I planted everbearing strawberries, but I actually have no clue what kind! They are doing great though, lots of little berries already.

Sorry i don't know more, I accidentally tossed the tags