Hey guys! So in the first half of this year we have planted 3 sets of tomato and pepper nursery with varying degrees of success.  I really should have blogged about this at least a month ago but the days just roll by so fast. Below is a chronicle of my nursery journey…..

I planted tomato nurseries in March, April and May

So this is a mini tutorial. I used 2 types of nursery media. For the first two I used coco peat and perlite and the third one I used Jardin, it a kind of soil starter mix. On the far left are the trays I used to plant the tomatoes, in the middle is the coco peat and perlite and on the left are the seeds. The variety I planted is called Eva.

So you start by wetting the trays and you can also wet the nursery media. Fill the tray grooves 3/4 full and make sure that the nursery media is firm within the trays.

Then you make shallow holes in the middle of the growing media and then gently place the seeds in the middle of the holes. Then cover the seeds.

Then place the trays on a raised surface. Water should be able to drain from the bottom easily, by placing on a raised surface it improves drainage and reduces the incidence of water logging. Then we irrigate using a knapsack sprayer.

This is where I raised the second and third set of nurseries.

So these are the outcomes of the nurseries I raised. The first one was a colossal failure. Look how tiny they are just two days to transplanting. We got far better results the second time, we are wiser now but there was still a lot of room for improvement (85% were successfully transplanted). The third nursery was a huge success (95% were successfully transplanted). Yay us!

So when the first set of nursery failed our fellow green house farmers at neighboring farms had extra seedling and were kind enough to give us some. That’s it on the left. You cannot imagine my joy. So about the second nursery, we planted tomatoes and pepper and as you can see from the second picture…well the peppers didn’t do too well. We will try again…

Below are pictures from the third nursery, it starts from when the seeds started germinating to when they were transplanted

I planted the nursery on the 7th of May and they started germinating by the 11th as seen in the pic on the left. By the 12th majority of them had germinated. The variety I planted is Nemoneta. For the first 5 days I irrigated with only water because the seeds had enough food in them. After they germinated I irrigated with a water-soluble fertilizer for 3 days and 1 day of water till they were transplanted, so basically a 3:1 ratio fertilizer for 3 days and water  for 1.

.By the 14th the seed leaves had already appeared by the 16th/17th the first set of true leaves had started to appear by the18th they were fully visible

From the 19th to the  22nd there was considerable growth as seen in the pictures

It appeared to me that significant growth occurred between the 23rd and 25th as seen in these pictures

The final days in the nursery! Whoop whoop! The picture here shows the growth that happened between the 26th and the 28th. Seedling is ready for transplanting after 21 – 28 days.

I irrigate the nursery in the morning before the sun rises and in the evening just after the sun set. There were a few days I forgot or didn’t get home in time. But they survived 🙂

The past few months have had its highs and lows. I found a picture of me thinking about our lows but none celebrating our highs so I decided to use this picture of cousin(which was taken by me 🙂 ) because her gorgeous smile expresses how I felt when things worked out. They might not have gone according to plan but it worked out…

Thanks for stopping by 🙂