Week 5 Update – This week I had to move the original hybrid tomato plants into grow bags because of their size. The first 10 that sprouted had grown so large that they were too big for the started tray to handle. I put them in 7 gallon grow bags that I filled to about 75% with Black Kow manure and then topped them off with MiracleGro garden soil. I made sure the soil mixture was damp before I added the plants to each bag and then gave each a light watering after the plant was in place.
I gently pinched off some of the lower leaves on each plant so that I could bury them deeper so that they can establish a stronger root system. I had a large tray that I was able to fit 6 grow bags into so that I can continue to water them from the bottom. I put about an inch and a half of water in the tray after adding the grow bags to it. The grow bags sucked up that water overnight so I added more water this morning.
This leaves the last 2 of the tomato plants from the frozen seed planting in the starter tray. They are only about 5 inches tall right now so they still have plenty of room to go before they need to be transplanted.
The second batch of seedlings is also getting close to requiring transplanting. At least the cucumber and watermelon plants are getting close. So far 6 out of 6 cucumber plants have sprouted and they are getting very large. The watermelon seeds had 5 out of 6 sprout and they are also getting big.
The non-frozen hybrid Better Boy Tomato seeds have been disappointing so far as only 5 out of 12 have sprouted. It’s still early though so I will wait to see if any more sprout before I give up on them. The seeds that sprouted have grown to about 5 inches tall so far.
The banana pepper seeds have seen 8 out of 12 sprout so far. The pepper plants range from about an inch tall to about 4 inches tall so far. All look healthy and based on their growth I will probably have to transplant them in the next 7-10 days.
I’ll update again next week.
