From Peat Pucks to Peat Pots

Friday was the big day! I transplanted the seedlings into pots. Good thing to, when I took off the plastic wrap (see last post) there were pucks that were completely dried out! I had 3 Tomato plants, Sub Artic Plenty, that were looking pretty wilted. I re-soaked the pucks before I planted them in the soil in the pots. I have more seedlings than I need so if some don't make it I'll still be fine.

Thin out the seedlings (leave just one plant in each puck) when the second set of leaves appears. See the tiny set of second leaves? Ready to thin!

Only some of the peppers had the second leaf sets when I thinned them today but the roots were sprouting out of the bottom of the puck so I should be okay. Really you want that second set of leaves to be fully developed before you transplant so again I may be a bit early on the peppers but I'm hoping they'll be okay. As you can see the second set of leaves on the tomatoes are fully developed and the roots were coming out the bottom of the peat pucks which means they were ready for transplanting.

I mixed crushed (more like chopped) eggshells, used coffee grinds, perilite, potting soil and some seed starter potting soil (at some point I realized I was not starting seeds so only a bit of this was used).

I should have soaked the peat pots first. I read that seedlings need water from below, not watering from above so that the roots reach down, good and deep. Remember I mentioned I re-soaked the peat pucks before they went into the pots. I watered the pots from the top thoroughly and then I've spritzed the pots a bit, we'll see how that works. The soil was good and loose so the watering should have soaked down deep. I plan to keep water in the trays I have the pots in so they well continue to absorb moisture up through themselves.

Now these lovely little green sprouts will sit in the sun for a couple more weeks to get good and strong. I'll stroll them out to the deck on really warm days and then harden them off a week before they go outside (keep them outside for longer and longer periods of time so they are used to the temps outside before they go in the ground).

I have extra pots to do some tomatoes on my deck. The extra pots are actually empty food grade plastic buckets from the bakery department at mom's local grocery store. They just toss the buckets in the recycling so if you ask they will gladly keep them for you as long as you pick them up asap.