Home Grown Tomato and Bell Pepper Project

Posted by whilehewasout on April 17, 2012 · 3 Comments

So I had this dream to cultivate a little garden on my balcony (and when I say little, I mean a 2×1 m thing) – nothing out of the ordinary, just a few baby plum tomato and bell pepper plants. Bell Pepper you ask? Well, why the hell not? 😀 So here we go, let’s see how the project is going so far! My gardening assistance comes from here.

The beginnings

Everything started with 2 pieces of baby plum tomatoes and 1 beautiful red bell pepper – I removed the seeds, let the pepper seeds dry out and the tomato seeds soak in water overnight. The next day I grabbed a couple of plastic cups, made a few holes on the bottom of each, filled them with potting soil, divided the seeds and placed them on top of the soil, then covered with a little more soil and watered them well.

The cups with the tomato seeds in them had to be covered with a plastic bag (kind of greenhouse for the seeds) while the sprouts appeared. When the small green darlings appeared, I placed the cups next to the pepper seed filled cups on the inner windowsill – they need a lot of light, around 16-18 hours a day! (Yeah I know, impossible… I do my best though 🙂 )

My tiny bell pepper sprouts:

The baby plum tomato sprouts:

Phase 2

When the real leaves appeared on the tomato sprouts and the little roots started to break out of the plastic cup (yes they are way overcrowded, I didn’t imagine they will actually live 🙂 ), I transferred them to a bigger plastic bucket with a lot more soil (careful not to break the roots). The peppers were quite strong by that time already, transferred them too – just check out my ultra-creative plant pot, 2 re-purposed green tea juice cartons (with holes on the bottom as well for water circulation) – the perfect size I have to say. Watered them well and placed back on the windowsill.

Tomatoes with toothpick support just for a day or two – removed them when they were strong to stand straight again:

Greenhouse 😀

Bell Peppers in their temporary new home:

Phase 3

Around a week has passed since the transfer of the sprouts into the bigger pots – they are getting stronger every day thanks to tons of light, water and love 🙂