As days get warmer, and hopefully sunnier, it will be time to transplant tomatoes, peppers, etc. This is not a difficult task but a few simple steps will help the plants get growing faster.

Transplants need to be hardened off. If you are not growing your own but buying from a greenhouse, the plants will need to be aclimatised to the cooler conditions they are about to face. Load the plants onto a tray and carry them out for a couple of hours during the warmest part of the day on the first day and then two hours longer the next day until they are outside all day. Once they have been left out overnight they can be transplanted.

When transplanting all plants they get less of a shock if you transplant either late afternoon or evening when it is cool. If it is a cool, cloudy, damp day you can do it any time. Dig a hole that will keep the plant at the depth it is in the pot. Add a bit of fertiliser to the hole and work it in. If the plant is root bound with roots running around the pot, gently loosen up the roots before planting. Plant, firming the soil around the stem leaving a small basin. Water very well and when it is drained, level off the soil.. In dry conditions the above is even more important. Dry soil on top of the wet soil of the transplant basin will cut down water loss from the soil. If it gets very hot, a few days shade will help reduce the stress.

Tomatoes have the ability to grow more roots from their stems if the stems are covered with soil. Either dig a hole deeper than the size of the original pot or plant them at an angle on their side. Deeper will mean cooler soil at their roots just now but will enable them to have a more constant supply of water during the hot days of summer. Shallow on their side will keep the stem and roots closer to the surface and warmer soil but they will dry out quicker. The choice is yours. If your tomatoes have had blossom end rot (black area where the flower parts have dropped off) you are either deficient in calcium or the watering is uneven. It is easy to augment calcium by placing a handful of oyster shell (available from a feed store) at the bottom of the hole and working it in with some fertilizer before planting. Black or red plastic mulch through which you plant will both help to warm the soil sooner and stop the spores of the fungus that causes blight from splashing onto the ripening fruit. This causes causing tomato blight in wet springs and falls. If you do get blight, immediately pull out the plant and burn it. A plastic cage over the plants will speed up growth and prevent blight. Lastly, check whether your plants are determinate (bush ) or indeterminate (keep on growing). A tomato cage will keep bush tomatoes off the ground and contained. Indeterminate are best kept to one or two stems with lateral buds pinched out to give bigger tomatoes which ripen faster. They do need strong stakes and can have their tips pinched out after 5 flower trusses have appeared. That is about all that will ripen in this climate.