If you want tomatoes in the ground by late April or early May, it would be good to get your seeds started sometime in the next two weeks. This gives you time for a second seeding if something goes awry in the first go around.

I’m trying several new varieties this year, as I usually do, along with a good portion of old favorites. We usually get our first ripe cherry tomatoes in June, and our first slicers by July. That seems a long way away!

In order to make room in the house for tomato seedlings, I had to move the pepper seedlings out to the yard. Usually I pot them up into 4” containers and stash them in the greenhouse. But I decided to try something new, and plant them directly into the beds where they will be eventually growing. This could fail.

It’s still a little chilly at night, and the birds are always ravenous for young seedlings. So, Tom and I got out the PVC pipes and Agribon and covered the beds of peppers. They were fine last night, and hopefully they will continue to be so. They won’t do much growing for the next few weeks, at least nothing that we can see. But underground, the roots will be unfurling and establishing and getting a good start, and by the time April rolls around (with, very likely, the hot weather that usually accompanies it) the peppers will shoot up and we can remove the covers.

I had an entire day outdoors on Saturday, working on all of this. It felt very much like spring, getting my hands dirty and sunburning the back of my neck. Here’s to summer veg!