Question

[Julie]

What exactly does it mean when your seed package says 80 days. Is that 80 days from when you plant the seed, 80 days from when the plant comes up, or 80 days from the day you put the plant in the garden?

[phylm]

What exactly does it mean when your seed package says 80 days. Is that 80 days from when you plant the seed, 80 days from when the plant comes up, or 80 days from the day you put the plant in the garden?
It is usually the days from transplanting.

[signseeker]

I thought it was days from planting the seed to picking... like with corn. Not everything is transplanted. ? :blink:

[Julie]

That is what has me confused too signseeker. I have been pondering this as I have been starting my tomatoes and peppers. If it is from the day of transplant then why go to the store and buy those great big tomato and pepper plants?

[ready2prepare]

You can start tomato plants from seed and have tomatoes in 6-7 months, depending on variety and weather conditions. Pepper plants take longer to reach transplant size than do tomato plants so they need to be started about a month earlier, but the time to required to produce fruit from transplant-sized plants is about the same for both peppers and tomatoes.

Which means: if you buy those pretty pepper and tomato plants in the big-box store and transplant them when the weather is WARM (above 50 degress at night) you'll get your tomatoes and peppers in about 80-90 days (2and1/2 to 3 months) as advertised.

Hope this helps.

[Julie]

I also found this info which may help too.

"Vegetable packets offer a "days to maturity" guideline to suggest when to sow your seeds. Those days are generally based upon how long it takes to grow the first ripe produce after a seedling is about four inches high, those dates are not indicative of how many days needed to produce ripe fruit after germination. "

[Julie]

Here's another opinion. I guess you just track who's right and go from there.

"It is not clearly defined anywhere that I've seen what constitutes the beginning moment when you start to count the days to maturity. The following has become my rule of thumb:

1) When seeds are directly sown in the garden, count the day the seeds GERMINATE until the first harvest to determine the days to maturity


2) When seeds are started indoors and then transplanted, begin counting the day you TRANSPLANT them into the garden."

[phylm]

Roughly so, Julie. Those large plants in the nurseries are much farther along than the 4 inch seedlings, especially when they are already putting out blossoms. We usually have ripe fruit within a month with those.

[signseeker]

My Master Gardener teacher told us to pick the smaller transplants in the store... not the biggest monster ones. Can't remember the reasoning... it was one of those passing comments that flies off his tongue like it's all common knowledge...

[Earthling]

Sign - it is because the bigger plants have such a long adjustment period that they produce at the same time as the smaller (and cheaper) plants. My neighbor plants gallon plants - I do 6 pack size. They come on at the same time every year.

[waif69]

Here's another opinion. I guess you just track who's right and go from there.

"It is not clearly defined anywhere that I've seen what constitutes the beginning moment when you start to count the days to maturity. The following has become my rule of thumb:

1) When seeds are directly sown in the garden, count the day the seeds GERMINATE until the first harvest to determine the days to maturity


2) When seeds are started indoors and then transplanted, begin counting the day you TRANSPLANT them into the garden."

If the time is the same, then why buy plants already started? Wouldn't it be much cheaper to buy the seeds yourself and start them that way?

[signseeker]

Yeah, you'd think just starting seeds would be the way to go. I guess things like tomatoes and peppers are popular to buy as plants because you get a few weeks jumpstart on the growing season. I've never tried growing tomato seeds directly in the garden... but I'm in zone 5. They might be getting ripe just as we're getting frosts in the fall.