I went out to get a few flats of tomatoes and bell peppers and couldn't find any of the normal size flats. You know 24 plants in each flat??? I went to 5 places including Lowes and couldn't find a one. Is there a shortage?? or something???? Normal we would have our gardens in May 15. My hubby is driving me nutz...
It's probably just past planting season according to the growers the garden centers buy plants from. We haven't had veggie plants except really sad looking ones on the sale table since early May.
Barb, with the strange weather we've had this year, all over the States, the big growers were caught flat-footed. They had lots of plants when no one could put them in, and now that gardeners are wanting them, the starts are past their prime. Have you tried a local nursery? They are usually more attuned to an area's weather than someone in, say, Benton Arkansas!
Yes, I found 2 flats of tomatoes and 2 of bell peppers, in little out of the way places that had only 1 each. They are already in the ground. They are very hard to see but not by next week...
Barb, I was totally sold out of tomatoes by the first of June. I was shocked!, but then again we had two hard frosts after the "last frost date" for our area, so there were many replanting not once, but twice. I am actually rooting suckers from the tomatoes in the garden and people are still asking for them... so I keep pulling and rooting them. I went to Kmart and HD tonight looking for 12-12-12 fertilizer (which no one had) and everything there was Bonnie plants in single peat pots at $3.49 - $5.49 and to think I sold mine in 3 cells for $1.00 or $12.00 a flat of 36. I think I could have sold them for a lot more than I did, but I sold them for what I felt was a good and fair price. $3.49 per plant is highway robbery.
Barb, I don't know how you do it. I have been following your front yard walkway work, getting tired just reading about it, & now you are out planting 96 tomatoes & peppers!
carolyn keiper, I paid $15 for all the flats. 24 plants in each flat. One lady tried to charge me $20.00 I choked and to revive me she quickly dropped the price $5.00. I must have looked horrible when she said $20. because I would have paid it. I never thought of asking her to go down. Cayuga Morning, That's the "up garden". It's about 20X30. The hubby tilled that last week and just gave it a 10 minute touch up this evening. The whole thing didn't take 1 hour tonight. The "back garden" doesn't dry out so fast. It's 30X50. Hubby tilled it one time but was too wet to do any more. Now it's going to rain for a while. Guess we will get that garden in very late.
no, no. We can and freeze them and give some away. I will admit that last year we had such a good bell pepper year that I was giving them away. They were staked up as tall as my tomato plants. I stopped counting them at 400 peppers out of the garden. I even diced them and froze them and gave them away already processed until December. I gave gallon bags to some of my egg customers on egg delivery day. They asked how much would they be, lol, I said you pay for the eggs and I'll give you the diced peppers. Many of my egg customers do allot of cooking along with baking, so it works well. I gave a little too many away into the Winter for we ran out a few weeks ago. That's hard for me to judge. Now I am buying one at a time when I need them. Until a few years ago my father-in-law put in a one acre garden and gave all of the good away. It's only him out there in Illinois. He just couldn't stop farming even at 80. Must be in my hubbys blood. I don't mind. He says, if it's too much food just give it away simple as that. I remember the time I put in about 40 celery plants. Well, I ate it, cooked with it, I even froze the celery and the leaves in separate bags, I gave it away and still had tons in the fridge. I didn't even know the people and I was giving it away.
Barb, I am just curious, are those flats you bought square or rectangles? I don't grow any flats with 24 plants in the size I use. are they 2 to a cell pack with big root masses or 4 to a cell with small root masses? Mine are 36 -72 plants per flat (which would be 3 plants per cell pack or 6 plants per cell pack in a flat of 12 cell packs) There are cell packs available for 2 per pack, but I rarely see them.
I went into a few of our local greenhouses and was told that they were sold out of veggies and there were unable to get more. There does seem to be a shortage here!
The larger one had "bell peckers", as my little daughter would say, in it. Netty, I am beginning to see that now. I am very happy to get what I could. But I will keep my eyes pealed for some more in case hubby wishes to add more to the back garden. That one should be mostly beans,peas, carrots, cauliflower, brocchli, and junk like that.
Interesting Barb. I haven't seen this size of cell pack offered in my materials catalog. We have what is called an 1801, which is 18 individual cells for flat. A 1203 is a flat with 12 packs of 3 cells in the flat, which is what you have in the small square of cells and that is considered a 1/2 flat in most places, but some greenhouses just call it "a flat". I grow mostly in the 1203's and put 2 in each cell for some of my plants. This give the plants more soil mass and won't hurt to pull them apart to plant them in the garden or plant them together. I have a Hungarian friend who plants all the peppers in twos, which she says helps to support each other as they grow tall.
I never pay attention to what they come in. Not part of my end of the business... :-D I do save them every year with plans on growing my own thingies but never succeed. Maybe next year I will do that for sure....
Honestly Barb, the tomatoes are the easiest thing in the world. I put a seed in each cell on the first of May for a friend that I forgot to start romas for and by the 1st of june they were big enough to put in the garden. No bottom heat, I just sat them on the bench in the greenhouse and put a plastic dome over them. as soon as they germinated I took the cover off and just watched over them. Now, peppers? they are a lot different, but still doable for anybody who wants to take the time to germinate them. They are a good 12 week crop before you can put them in the garden. They generally take at least a week on a heat mat to germinate and sometimes even longer. Then they are as fast as "molasses in Jan" to grow. almost to the point of boring. everyday you go out and see...um.... um.....nothing, and then one day (after about 3 months) they finally grow. You can do it easy! You even have a beautiful greenhouse to work in...Next year try it. I even just started some pepper seeds I got in a burpees plant starter kit (score!!!it was 99 cents at TSC, marked down from $12.99) I am hoping to trial them for next year to see if I want to grow them for my customers. Will see by the end of the summer. I will put them in pots That way I can move them into the greenhouse if I see the Summer ending with a killing frost like it has for the last two years.
