CHAPTER XIV 



TOMATO. EGGPLANT. PEPPER 



How these vegetables do like to be tickled "with a hoe! 

 Humor 'em often. Farmer Vincent. 



<ARLY tomato plants are usually 

 started in hotbeds in the North 

 about February I5th. (Earlier in 

 the South.) Refer to Chapter III 

 for particulars of culture under 

 glass, transplanting, etc. One ounce 

 of seed should produce about 3,000 

 plants. Remember that too high a 

 temperature and too much moisture 

 make spindling, weak plants. Sixty- 

 five or 70 is about right. The first 

 transplanting to other flats in hotbeds is done about 

 March I5th, spacing 2x2 inches apart. If extra- 

 large, stocky plants are wanted, transplant them a 

 second time, about April I5th, spacing them five 

 inches apart, in coldframes or spent hotbeds. Finally, 

 after well hardening-off, about the last of May the 

 plants are moved to permanent quarters in the open 

 ground. (Owners of small gardens will generally 

 find it easier to buy plants than to raise them.) My 

 late or main-crop plants are sown in hotbeds as late 

 as April ist, transplanted to coldframes May 1st, 

 and set in the open ground about June ist. They are 

 not so large then as the earlier-grown plants, but are 

 all right for main crop. 



Outdoor rows should be four feet apart; plants 



