Curiosity got the best of me last night. I was trying to stay awake to watch the end of a movie, but I was getting tired. I decided to move the cubanelle peppers I'd started in a 2" deep tray into individual cups. I'm glad I did. In all, the roots were more than an inch long. On some of them, the roots were longer.
They aren't showing any kind of shock this morning.
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| Cabbage Family |
Lots of my spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and cosmos are putting out their primary leaves. Every plant sprouts with two leaves. These are called the "food leaves." Since the nutrition that was inside the shell of the seed is just about used up by breaking out, growing roots and a stem, the food leaves get sunshine and help with water, so the plant has enough energy to keep growing. The third leaf that comes in is a "true" leaf because it is all about the finished plant. It looks like the leaves of the mature plant. This example is a seedling from the cabbage family. I can tell because the food leaves are kind of shaped like four-leafed clover leaves. But that doesn't tell me which plant this is. I won't know until the plant is fully grown. Is it cabbage? Is it Brussels sprouts? I just can't tell.
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| Nightshade Food Leaves |
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| Nightshade Food Leaves + True Leaf |
A lot of seedlings we use in North American gardens look the same when they are at a young age. Tomatoes and peppers look the same to me. Seedlings for both start with thin green stalks with two long leaves that look like blades of grass. They both come from the nightshade family, so it makes sense that they look similar before they get their true leaves but still, when you look at a tomato true leaf, you'll notice it's oval-ish with point on the end and ridges along the side edges like fingers. When you look at a pepper true leaf, it's oval-ish with a point at the end and the edges are scalloped and ridged like they have fingers too. There are other subtle variations based on the variety of the plant - fuzzier leaves, waxy leaves - but these variations show up in both peppers and tomatoes, so this is not a good way to tell which is which.
This is why it's so important to mark seeds and seedlings when they are growing. In the latest article I read it said you must label your seeds, really. You will not remember what is what even if you think you do, so mark them already. Did you mark them? Mark them now. Variety too. Not just "tomato" but "red cherry tomato." The bigger the garden, the more important it is.
I made this mistake in the past, especially with the 72 cell seed started kit I bought last year. After a very short while, I started to forget which is which. Luckily (?) since most of the seedlings I planted last year died, I used the markers from the seedlings I bought already started to mark the rows. But then there was a rain storm and wind and those blew away.
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| Tomato Plants |
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| Pepper Plants |
I proudly say that I was very good about marking the trays and pots this year. I know what I'm putting in the ground and where. Since I have SO many seedlings started, I could easily grab a bunch of tomatoes thinking I've got tomatoes and peppers and completely miss out.
I want to make sure I have a good representation of all of the varieties of peppers I've started, but keep them together in the plot.
Of the tomatoes, there are two kinds of tomatoes.
Determinate tomatoes grow the fruit at the end of the branch. If anything happens (or doesn't happen) on that branch, that fruit is completely lost. Indeterminate tomatoes grow with branches that have many fruit growing on either side of the branch. Last year, determinate tomatoes were ruined all over Minnesota because they flowered late and had to put all of their energy to the ends of their branches to make the tomato. By the time they were the right size, the season was over and they didn't turn ripe. Any of them. People who didn't plant indeterminate totally skunked out.
I've grown indeterminate tomatoes with few exceptions. I like the way they look when they ripen (tip to plant), and I've chosen small fruit varieties like Sweet 100 and Red Currant. Since these plants flower all summer and produce all summer, they are more flexible to weather troubles.
The other difference is that determinate tomatoes grow like bushes. They are about 4 feet tall when they are done. They can be staked to help with wind, but it's not necessary.
Indeterminate tomatoes are vines. Mine have gotten to 8 feet tall. Stakes won't do with these. Some people let them grow across the ground like squashes on top of beds of straw. Others, like me, train them to grow up, around and through a trellis. The main benefit of this is that it takes up a smaller footprint in the garden since the vines aren't vulnerable to being stepped on.
I have to know which tomatoes I am planting because I need to plan for the space they will take up and the kind of support they need. I've mixed them up before and I've had to quick change the structures in the garden. By the time they were big enough to tell the difference, it was too late to dig them up and move them without doing a lot of damage.
Finally, when a bunch of volunteer stuff came up, I couldn't tell if it was what I planted or not. I had to wait for those plants to get full size to figure out what things were. It was a waste of time, a waste of space, and a waste of fertilizer.
Not this year.
