July Update! Tomatoes, peppers and cukes!

Its a bit of damp and cool day in Edmonton today which has chased me in to the apartment for a glass of red wine after taking these pictures.

Much of July has been damp too but the tomatoes are soaking it all up, as are the cucumbers and some of the peppers.  I think if it were a bit hotter a few of the peppers would be more developed but all in all things are looking good.  The tomatillos are also starting to produce fruit!  This is a bit of a departure from my past failures.  I chalk it up to having had six plants to pollenate each other.  After the fruit set, I threw out the runty pot to concentrate on allowing the 2 bigger monsters to grow.  On to the pics:

Not sure what tomato this is.

Tomatillo setting fruit!

Tomatillo plants.

Yellow Pear - Organic

Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Purple gusto peppers

Purple gusto peppers and Hungarian Hot Wax peppers

Corentine cuckes with dill

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Cucumber! I've never grown this plant before, this is Corentine.  

Corentine cukes are very easy to grow.  

Cucumber is hanging out with some cilantro.

Purple Gusto Peppers and Parsley

Purple Gusto peppers...almost look black!  

The heat is here!

The heat is here!

Finally.  

This being Saturday I had time to head to Canadian Tire for a bag of municipal compost and some drain rocks. Once home I transplanted a few of the bigger saplings today.

Below is the Sub Arctic Maxi in its new pot.  

Below is a view of the the tray of remaining Sub Arctic Maxi tomatoes.  These four and a tomatillo, didn't seem quite big enough to transplant yet.  In the next few days they should be monsters worthy of planting.

Below are the 2 flats of seedlings, I put them out in the sun and breeze to begin to harden them off.  Over the next couple of weeks I expect they will transition into larger pots.

Here are the rest of today's transplants, shown below.  From back to front: 2 tomatillos sharing one large pot, another sub arctic maxi tomato plant in a somewhat smaller pot, a single tomatillo in its own pot, and at the front a tomatillo sharing a pot with a Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper.  This pepper seemed to be the only one large enough to bear a transplant yet...even then I might have been pushing it, but I was excited to get it into a pot with another plant.

That's all for today, but what a landmark day it is, when the seedlings make it into their big-boy pots!  Happy planting.  

Everything is getting a little bit bigger

We have seen continued success in the seedlings department.  I am quite happy with the grow lights this year.  We have continued to experience a cold April this year.  It is currently 0C and it is April 21 today.  We also have not been getting many sunny days.  So the grow lights have been good to have around.

In the photo above the largest plants are the tomatillos.  The grow lights really helped prevent them from getting too leggy.  Last year all but one died as a result of being too leggy.  In the foreground the peat seed pellet is a Gusto Purple Pepper.  The tomato in the middle ground is a Lemon Boy.

Above is the latest seedlings to crop up.  This tray is a real mixed bag of everything from Yellow Pear tomatoes, Totem F1 tomatoes, Hot Wax peppers and Purple Gusto peppers.  The seeds with the worst germination rate this year are the Organic Yellow Pear.  I think I have about 3 of them out of all I planted.

The Sub Arctic tomatoes are the hands-down off to the races winners this year.  They are doing very well.  I had to stake them up to keep them from bending over into the sun, but otherwise seem to be very well suited to the cooler climate and obviously are vigorous growers.

Above is an overhead shot to show you what the growing set up looks like right now.  We are about to go out of town for a week and have a house sitter, so I have the lights on timers, and the only thing the house sitter needs to do is water the trays. I will not be expecting any seedlings that sprout while we are away to survive, or be transplanted into pots, so this is the extent of the tomato and pepper crop this year.  I might have a peek into the seed incubator when I get back and see if there is anything to salvage, but I am not going to get my hopes up.

Seed Count:

Sub Arctic - 5
Hot Wax - 7
Gusto Purple - 5
Toma Verde - 5
Lemon Boy - 5
Totem - 2
Yellow Pear - 2
Unknown - 2 (Ran out of plant i.d. tags)

All in all it seems like an interesting, diverse crop is shaping up this year.

One round of sprouts, one more round of sowing

Another snowy weekend in Edmonton.  Sigh.  I'm not letting it hold the garden back yet.

This week on Friday the Toma Verde's were the first to sprout!  This year I am determined to see them live, so I had made an advance purchase of 2 cantilever desk lamps and some grow bulbs.  I want to make sure the seedlings get the light they need to live rather than straining them selves to death as they did last year.  This year every sign so far seems to indicate the lighting is making an impact.

The second seeds to burst forth from the earth was the Sub Arctic Plenty's.  All seeds sown have germinated.

The third seeds to make it above ground are a couple (so far) of Lemon Boy tomatoes.  We had a little scare this afternoon where they seemed to droop a bit, but I think it was a reflection of taking them out of their domes and the shock of dealing with the dry air.

With all 3 of these seedlings moving out of the incubators and into 3 inch pots I decided to sow 3 more varieties of seeds.  Today I planted the following into the Jiffy Peat Pellets, and placed the incubators on the heat pad and radiator:

8x Totem F1 Hybrid tomato from William Dam Seeds
8x Yellow Pear Organic tomato from William Dam Seeds
8x Gusto Purple pepper from Vesey's

Pictures of the set up:

 Here (above) you can see the still-inculbating Hot Wax peppers and where some of the Lemon Boys were living until they were potted this morning. The freshly planted Yellow Pear seeds can be seen in the incubator on the radiator in the background.

 Above are visible the new sprouts, a mix of Toma Verde tomatillos and Sub Arctic Pleanty tomatoes.  The stainless steel desk lamps make easily adjustable grow lamps.  The lamp on the left has a Ottlite Gro Bulb CFL and the lamp on the right has a Philips Daylight CFL.

 What at this time appears to be a happy and healthy Sub Arctic Plenty sprout.

The entire first tray of sprouts can be seen in this lengthwise photo.   In this view is the new Lemon Boy, Sub Arctic Plenty, and the Toma Verdes.

New this year is the timer to control the CFL grow lights. I have it set so that no matter the weather there is an ample supply of light for 16 hours a day.

That's it for this week's instalment of Just Leafy!

2013 First Planting

Well it was a nice sunny Easter Sunday and all the shops were closed, so I poked into my storage closet to see what gardening supplied I had on-hand.  Lo and behold I had enough potting soil and seeds to get the first planting of 2013 into the soil and sun!

Here is the list of seedlings sown:
5x Lemon Boy tomatoes
10x Toma Verde tomatillos (2 per pot, 5 pots)
5x Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes
13x Hungarian Hot Wax peppers

Here is a photo of the sown seeds soaking up the sun and warmth.

Future plantings will be made in the coming week once seeds on order arrive.

On order from Vesey's is:
Gusto Purple Hot Pepper
3x20 inch window sill heat mat

On order from William Dam Seeds:
Corentine cucumbers
Mesclun mix
Totem F1 hybrid tomatoes
Yellow Pear Organic tomatoes
Fern Leaf Dwarf Dill
Greenhouse growers plant clips

Stay tuned to the Just Leafy blog for updates on germination, transplanting, vegetable production, recipes and year-end canning and salsa making.  Happy gardening!