Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Transplanting

I started transplanting my little tomato seedlings this evening.  I couldn't do all of them because with all the craziness going on around here we haven't managed to get the second bank of grow lights up and I only have room for one flat extra under my current lights.   I'm also struggling with how many of each variety to plant out in the garden.  I have shared a garden with Roger for so many years that I'm not sure what we will need for just our family.  This is a canning year though.  Last year with all the rain and flooding I didn't have enough to do any serious canning and we are out of tomatoes!!!  So I need to make sure I plant enough to have PLENTY.  Tonight I transplanted 4 each of Mortgage Lifter, Amana Orange, Amish Paste and Polish Linguisa and two Cherry Roma.  I still have 3 varieties to go and I want a few more of the paste tomatoes as I need to make sauce this summer.  The summer before last I canned 40 quarts of tomato sauce.
I spent a while talking to Roger on the phone.  He is disappointed that we won't be sharing the garden but is excited for us and the new place.  He is OK with me planting my peas and early stuff at his house (although he jokingly told me that I was just going to come pea all over his garden because our septic was bad- HA! HA!).  He had a problem with his lights and a lot of his tomato seedlings died so it's a good thing I planted extras.  I also started the majority of the peppers for both of us so we will share.  He did plant the wonderfully obscene Peter Red peppers which are doing well so I will HAVE to get a few plants and share photos.   My goal for tomorrow is to get my lights hung and more seedlings transplanted.  It's time.

6 comments:

  1. That's some serious canning, especially as tomatoes cook down a lot. Do you can each variety separately or also do some mixtures?

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  2. Last year I think I did 3 different paste tomatoes - 15 plants each and we are TOTALLY out of everything I canned. What a bummer. So I guess this year I will be doing more.....
    Kris

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  3. Localzone- I usually do just a few quarts of whole tomatoes and about 15 pints of diced tomatoes that I use in recipes. The rest get thrown together and cooked down for sauce which is what we use the most.
    Kris- Yikes- 15 plants each! I thought I was pushing it with 6 plants each of 4 varieties of paste and 4 each of 'other'. you're ambitious.
    Judy

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  4. Ah tomatoes. I never have good luck with them. My father in-law starts them for us, but after I get them home they are usually doomed to an early death. I'm trying a different location this year, hopefully it works better.

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  5. I hear you about running out of canned tomato sauce! Two years ago I just about got it right - we ran out in April (ish), but then again we bought the tomatoes from a local organic farmer at a fantastic price. Last year we grew our own and vastly underestimated how many plants we needed. Lets see if I can get it right this year!

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  6. That is a bummer, always seem to be something! Good luck working something out with them!

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