Transplanting

The peppers that I started in the basement have been growing for approximately a month.  Of the 141 seeds planted 120 germinated and are growing.  There are 2 that only had partial leaves but it looks like they are coming back and one that is yellow (I'm fairly sure it is going to die at any time now). Overall, looking at just over an 84% success rate, this far succeeded my expectations when planting.   Due to the increased heat and light this year over last, the peppers are thriving and in the 72 cell pack a couple of the larger ones are starting to shade out the others.

As you can see in this picture the peppers are really startling to get crowded. In the back the tomatoes are just getting started.

 This led to the “growing tower” idea or seeding shelf that I built.  Before today I had 2 flats of peppers and 2 flats of tomatoes sitting on card tables with 2 shop lights overhead for light.  By transplanting into additional flats my horizontal light space was gone so I had to a more vertical structure.

The room is only 59” high with limited space so the shelf is 54” high, 52” long and 17” wide.  It has 3 shelves spaced 17 inches apart.  The sides are made of 2x4 and the shelves are 1 1/4” x5 ½”.  All of the wood came from skids that I tore apart to reuse.  The shelf is screwed together so that after spring is over the shelves can be taken off and it can be moved.  The lights are all 4’ hanging shop lights with cool white bulbs.  They are hanging on hooks with 75lb. chain so that the heights can be adjusted as the plants grow. 

For the pepper transplanting I used 4 small flats each with 12 cells.  The cells are 2”x2 ½”, not as large as I would have liked but they were from a bunch I picked up for free at the end of last year.  I picked 48 of my best plants while still getting some from each variety.  The distribution is as follows King of the North (12), Alma Paprika (8), Hungarian Banana (4), Medusa (6), Jimmy Nardello (6), Chocolate (6) and Purple Beauty (6).  They were planted in the same miracle grow potting soil and will be getting significantly more light as well as water.