It was a gorgeous day in Maine today. We started the day with a bike ride to a local restaurant to have breakfast with friends. It was a little cool, but the ride was fun, although unfortunately it was uphill on the way home –or maybe that was a good thing?
Once home, I got to work transplanting tomato seedlings. I decided to use some old tomato seeds rather than order new, so I planted several seeds in each pot in case of poor germination. Germination was good, and I just hate thinning them, so I decided to transplant them all into individual pots and give them away or trade them. I now have 41 tomatoes after giving 4 away earlier in the day. I did the same with my peppers, although fortunately I don’t have as many peppers.
I planted 9 varieties of tomato, a mix of slicing and paste tomatoes, and one cherry tomato, my old standby Sungold. I also purchased some Jet Star tomatoes after hearing rave reviews from one of the Extension staffers.
Martha Washington (slicer)Rose (slicer)Cherokee Purple (slicer)Jet Star (slicer)Orange Banana (paste)Pompeii (paste)Sungold (cherry)German Johnson (slicer)Pineapple (heirloom slicer)Speckled Roman (paste)
For peppers I planted Ancho (Tiburon), Anaheim (Joe E. Parker), Sweet Italian Frying (Carmen), and Early Jalapeno.
I also started some more lettuce, and some zinnias and bachelor buttons. For the smaller plants I’ve been using un-coated paper Dixie cups, which I find very convenient, but I may give my soil blocker another try this spring with more flowers. Labeling is always a problem for me with the soil blocker, but it won’t matter so much with flowers.
It was a gorgeous day to be outside in Maine. The worst of the busy spring semester is behind me now, so with luck I’ll be able to enjoy the spring a bit more now, and in 7 weeks I’ll be off finishing up at work for the summer, whoo hoo!
We finally had some rain yesterday, showers mostly, but enough that the leaves popped overnight. Our 
rain gauge shows nearly 3/4 of an inch, but we had some locally heavy showers late in the day. Dan quickly sprinkled about some grass seed in some bare areas, and mulched with straw from the hendome. I hope we get enough showers over the next few days so we can skip the sprinkler.
