Jumpstarting My Garden: On Seed-Starting Inside

Last year was my first year trying seed-starting inside. While it was not a slam dunk, I found that for some of my veggies, it resulted in stronger, higher-yielding plants. It's also more cost-effective than buying veggie starts.

This year, I've started multiple varieties of lettuce, jalapeno and Serrano peppers, tomatoes (primarily San Marzano), kale, and herbs including cilantro, parsley and basil.

Roasting Hot Peppers

One of the things going well for me this year in my garden are my mucho nacho peppers. There are plenty coming off the one plant I have. I harvested a handful a week or two ago and roasted them in the broiler.

Here are some directions on allrecipes to roast peppers in your broiler.

I took the five peppers, laid them out on the pan, brushed them with oil and popped them in the broiler. When one side started turning black, I flipped them. Then I let them cool completely and threw them in the freezer, with plans to use them down the road in the same recipes I have previously used canned chiles for!

2 Pepper Problems: Black Stems and Brown Patches on the Leaves

Why are my mucho nacho pepper plants turning black? I noticed a week or so ago that the stems were turning black, and I was worried. But other than the black stem, the plant was actually flowering and growing, which it wasn't.

My black-stemmed beauty ... Mucho Nacho Pepper

A quick Google search, and I find (correct me if it’s wrong) that it’s perfectly normal for some pepper plants to have black on their stems.

One of my bell pepper plants is also looking a little funky lately. The leaves look drier than they should, the plant appears to have stopped growing, and there’s a little bit of brown patch on the pepper leaves. The leaves are also curling. This problem I do not believe is “normal.” My golden bell pepper plant seems more than healthy, so the problem – whatever it is – appears to be isolated to this guy.

Bell pepper plant - not looking so healthy ...

I am on vacation right now, but I did find this helpful guide I plan to use when I get back. If my plant is still looking sickly, I'll take some action.

Here Come the Tomatoes

My tomatoes are growing! My Christmas Grape is producing ...

And my beefsteak tomato plant is certainly looking promising.

I've been torn on how much I should prune the tomato plants, however. My research is mixed. Some say that you should just leave it as nature intended. My plants definitely got large and sprawled last year. one produced well (the Christmas Grape) and the other not so well. Well, it grew, but it did not produce a lot of fruit. I decided to pinch off suckers and a few of the stems at the lower end of the plant.

I fertilized my tomatoes and peppers a week or two ago. The peppers are still struggling to grow, however. The bell pepper is doing much better than my Macho Nacho pepper. I pinched off a flower off my Macho Nacho hot pepper plant - the first one there - as I read that it can divert the energy away from the flower into the rest of the plant. Not sure I'm seeing the results yet!

I'm getting eager for my tomatoes and peppers to produce some fruit!

2 More in the Garden: San Marzano Heirloom Tomato and a Golden Bell Pepper

I planted two more veggies in my garden today in space left blank by failed garlic and onion. These will be my final additions until maybe August when I plant some fall crops, including some winter squash and some more lettuce.

I decided I loved tomatoes too much not to add a third to my garden this year. I chose an heirloom variety, San Marzano, a thinner, pointier early version of a Roma tomato. I plan to use it to make tomato sauce for chili, which is a favorite of mine in the winter!

I also added a pepper plant, this one a golden bell pepper, which joins a macho nacho hot pepper (like a jalapeno) and a simple green bell in the garden.