Getting Started - Pepper, Tomatoes and Eggplants - Paul Betz
At
High Ledge Farm we grow a lot of peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants for
plant sales and production at our farm. While they are all nightshades,
they all need a little different handling in the greenhouse and field.
Peppers and eggplants are slow growing, and need extra
time to get to a transplantable size. We start our peppers and
eggplants in late march, for sale or transplant around the last week of
May, in about 10-11 weeks. This includes at least a week in the cold
frame where we harden them off.
A lot of the concerns about peppers especially is the
length of time it takes for them to germinate. Peppers will not do well
if the soil is cold, and the likelihood that the seed will rot will
increase the longer the seeds sit in cold soil. The ideal temperature
for germination is around 85° F, much warmer than the average
windowsill. I use a 1020 flat/tray full of soil with a bottom heat mat
to keep my soil at an ideal temperature, and most of my seeds are up in 5
to 6 days. Before I used the mat, I used the oven in the kitchen. We
have a gas oven, and if I put a wooden spoon in the door to keep it open
a little, the pilot will keep the temp at 80° F. Just remember to let
everyone in the house who likes to bake know they are in there. The
bottom line is that they have to be warm.
After the plants are up and have their first true
leaves, we pot them up into either a six pack for retail sale or a 36
cell tray for farm use. The bigger cells I use for the farm give me a
little more flexibility in when they need to be planted out in the
garden. After this they should be in the cold frame for about 1 week. My
nighttime temperature in the greenhouse is around 60°F. That keeps them
from growing too quickly and getting leggy. A short, stocky plant will
always do better than a tall, leggy one, and experience less transplant
shock.
Once
the seedlings are in the field, warm nights will go a long way to a
more successful harvest. Consider covering them with a row cover
overnight, especially in the spring when it can still be cool. On the
other hand it is important that the plants do not get too hot. Pepper
flowers will drop if the temperature gets higher than 85°F, so it’s
important to get the row covers off before the sun heats them up too
much.
Where we are, Tarnished Plant Bug is a major pest of
peppers and eggplants. It sucks sap from plants, and leaves a dead zone
around the site of attack. They love to suck at the base of the flowers,
which causes the flowers to drop. We use a very light row cover
(AG-06), which keeps them out while not building up as much heat as
thicker row covers.
Tomatoes will germinate at a lower temperature than
the peppers and eggplants, but I use the same setting on my heat mat to
get them up as quick as I can. In my experience, they need much less
time in the greenhouse, and I plan on having a plant that is 4-5 weeks
old being ready to go in the field. I move them into a four pack for
sale and a 3 ½" pot for the farm.
Once
out in the field, we use lots of mulch to keep the plants off the
ground. We do not trellis, and keeping soil off the plants gives us
cleaner fruit and a lower incidence of Early Blight and Septoria Blight,
the major disease of tomatoes in our area. They are both soil borne
fungi, and get started when the soil splashes up on the leaves of the
plants. I use Serenade and a copper spray in rotation when I first see
the disease.
