Planting More Garden Goodies

I’ve already talked about prepping your garden to plant and planting your cold weather/early veggies, so today I’m going to finish up this planting series with how to plant tomato and pepper plants.

This weekend the weather was a tad bit warmer and dry so I took advantage and got my tomatoes and peppers planted, along with 2 rows of green beans and a basil and parsley plant.

None of these veggie are hard to plant or grow at all!  They all take care of themselves, really!  First things first, go to your garden center and pick out the variety you want.  This year I went with Big Boy Tomato plants, Green Belle Peppers and a new hot pepper called Salsa Pepper.  Normally I plant plain old Jalapeno Peppers but we thought we’d give the Salsa Pepper a try, the card said it was perfect for salsa which is why we plant spicy peppers. 

Ok, dig a hole that is a little deeper than the pot your plants come in.  My tomatoes came in a 4-pack so the ‘plugs’ are small and I didn’t need a very deep hole.  Carefully pop the plant out of the container.  Now, if you see in the picture below there are some small little leaves growing towards the bottom of the stem.  You are going to snap those off with your fingers.  The reason for this is so your plant isn’t so lanky and weak, it’ll build up a stronger ‘trunk’ as it grows up and get a better root system beneath it.

Since you’ve snapped off the bottom tiny leaves you have a new set of ‘bottom leaves’ now.  You’ll want that new set to be just over ground level when you plant it, so make sure your hole is the appropriate depth.

Hold the plant straight up and down in the hole and fill in the dirt around it.  Use your hands to push the soil down firmly around the plant. 

And that’s it!  Wasn’t that easy?!?

Now you’ll do the exact same thing with your pepper plants!

And if you’re planting herbs the planting process is exactly the same except for snapping off the bottom leaves.  Just dig a hole a little bigger than the pot size, plunk the herb down in the hole, fill with dirt and snug it down into the earth. 

I also planted 2 rows of green beans Sunday.  Those are done exactly the same as the carrots.  I space out my green bean plantings so they aren’t all coming on at the same time.  Since I planted this past weekend I’ll plant another row or 2 in 2 weeks.  The first batch should be ready for their first picking end of June.

When choosing your beans remember that there are many varieties.  Some are bush beans (what I prefer), some are more of a vine.  Some you have to remove the string before cooking, canning and serving, some you do not.  I don’t want that extra step so I get stringless.  It’s all up to your preference.  Do a little research and choose what’s best for you.

I hope I’ve taught you some things you didn’t know about planting a garden with this series!  If you have any q’s I didn’t answer please let me know!