I’ve started my seedlings for the 2018 gardening season. On March 24, I planted jalapeno, habanero, roma tomato, green onion, and basil seeds into jiffy pods. A few days later I planted some tomatillos and poblanos in another tray. By this time everything has sprouted and the plants are under grow lights for 15 hours a day on a timer (an innovation since last year the plants got a little leggy on the windowsill). The first tray is about a week ahead of the other tray, so it’s been getting full light for a week and had its first watering this morning. The tomatoes have their first true leaves as of today.
I’m targeting planting out sometime in mid to late May. I can’t remember when I potted up the plants last year but it must’ve been some time in late April / early May. That’s at least a couple of weeks away for these 2-week old seedlings.
This year I hope to have better tomatoes by planting fewer of them and giving them more space. I was originally planning to do just two roma plants with two-foot spacing, plus one tomatillo plant. Then I learned that tomatillos won’t self pollinate so I’ll need to do at least two of those also. If those plus all the pepper plants work out, we’ll have way more than we can eat. Of course, the rabbits may still have other plans.