Hey, everyone -
I should have been more clear in my opening post; in Montana - in March - you start tomatoes and peppers indoors, as there are still plenty of opportunities for freezing and other hazards to healthy garden growth. By starting early and indoors, your seedlings will be grown and healthy enough to thrive when transplanted outside.
To start my tomatoes and peppers, I use this:
We have a pretty short growing season up here (generally considered to be 15 May to 15 September, but usually runs a little longer), so these greenhouse things give a good head start.
Anyway, I started the peppers and tomatoes today...2 days late! I think we'll be okay, though.
I suck at getting peppers to start, grow or survive, so I planted 3 pods of each pepper, 3 seeds per pod. The seeds for all are a bit old (2011, I think), but we'll see how it goes. The Hungarian ones are from 2012, and have been vacuum-sealed since that time, so I am hopeful.
Here are the peppers:
3 pods "Peperone Piccante a Cuore" (from Emanuele Larosa Semente)
3 pods Spanish Cherry Peppers (from Burpee)
3 pods Hungarian “Paprika” peppers (from a friend who generously shared them with me)
3 pods Pequin peppers from Texas (also shared by a friend)
As for the tomatoes, my dad ran out of Celebrity seeds, but had just gotten a pack of a "new" variety called "Celebration," which is supposed to be an improved Celebrity. Also, I decided to skip the cherry tomatoes from American Seeds, for two reasons: a) because I was doubled-up on cherries anyway (triple, if you count the black cherries); and b) because I remembered that between the American Seeds cherries and the Burpee "Sweet 100" cherries, one was radically better than the other, and I am 90% sure that the better ones were the Sweet 100s.
Anyway, skipping the American Seeds variety allowed me to try a couple of others that my dad had, the Granny Cantrell German and the Cor de Beouf. So, my new tomato line-up for 2016 is this:
2 pods Celebration (from Gurney)
2 pods Brandywine Pink (from Burpee)
2 pods San Marzano 2 (from Seeds from Italy)
2 pods Southern Nights (from TomatoFest)
2 pods Black Krim (from TomatoFest)
2 pods Purple Russian (from TomatoFest)
2 pods Mr. Hawkins (from TomatoFest)
2 pods Black Plum (from TomatoFest)
2 pods Black Cherry (from TomatoFest)
2 pods Super Sweet 100 (from Burpee)
1 pod Granny Cantrell German (from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds)
1 pod Coeur de Boeuf (from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds)
2 pods Early Girl (from Gurney)
I am much more confident in the tomatoes, and all of those seeds are quite new, so I only started 2 pods of each (with 2 exceptions above), 3 seeds in each pod.
I need to get a bunch of taller 24-ounce sourcream/yoghurt/cottage cheese containers...at least 36 of them...so that can eventually transplant these pods into them. They work perfectly as far as size goes, and are easy to tip the plant and dirt out of when putting in the ground. It would be better to also start in these larger containers (as my dad does) and then they could just be re-planted once, but space limitations and cats make this impossible.
My dad started a few different tomatoes, including the last of his Celebrities, some Cherokee Purples, the Black Cherries that I also started, those new Celebrations, some kind of yellow plum tomatoes, Rutgers, Beefsteak and I am sure a couple of others I am forgetting. All-in-all, I think 12 or 15 plants. He also started some yellow and red sweet peppers, some of my Hungarian peppers and jalapeños.
In about a month, it will be time to start the cucumbers, squashes, melons, pumpkins etc. Dad gave me a bunch of different summer squashes to plant, and I have a bunch of different things from last year; also, there are a couple of varieties that I want to order specifically, so I'll see what I end up with. I am strongly considering tilling up a new section of the yard for the squashes, melons etc. - I have three lots, so I might as well put them to work.
Around May 15th, give or take, it will all go in the ground, along with the stuff planted directly into the ground such as corn, beans, root crops, lettuce (or spinach), carrots, maybe some radishes...much as we've discussed. I'll flesh out the ideas as we get closer.
