Hello Ron,
once the seeds have germinated and I've transplanted them over to a compost pot, the only failures I've had have been pots where I haven't watered enough straight after transplanting.
If you want, I'll make up miniature earthtainer that I use for my tomato seedlings and post a picture for you. Really easy just a pot, capillary wick and half a cola bottle. Haven't got an empty bottle at the moment, which is unusual the way my kids go through them. The trick is to strike a balance, between the amount of water wicked up and the amount of drainage in your mix, it took me a while to get it right and I still make mistakes as I'm still learning.
Personally I don't like the idea of mist spraying my plants, far to much work for me I'm too lazy.
As for removing your peat pots, as someone has already said, seedlings are tough little B&s*@r%s, I'd tip the pot upside down with the stem between your fingers and just rip off the pot. Haven't used peat pots for years, but I'm pretty sure the ones I used didn't rot away either.
I agree with you, bigger the root ball, bigger the plant and more fruit. Some of my OP plants tend to have small roots and struggle while the F1 are bred to produce stronger roots and plants but of course are more expensive and you can't save the seed. Luckily in the Uk there is a shop called Wilko that sells seeds at the end of the season with a 75% markdown. Got some F1 Shirley for £1 the other week ready for next year.
This year and a much to late really I tried some Dwarf Tomato Project toms for the first time, don't know if anyone else agrees but I found the root and plant growth very impressive I would recommend those for next year to you Ron.
Lastly Rugby, I live in North Wales Ron and we don't tend to follow the Rugby as keenly as the South do as all the big teams are in the south. I grew up in the eighties watching New Zealand thumping Wales usually by about a 100 points, I'm sure my emotions at the time were far different to yours. I was and still am convinced that 80% of it is down to size of the players. Our lads looked to be about 5ft tall to your 7ft giants, by half time most of our players didn't have much energy left for the second half. We are doing much better now, but one thing for sure Ron, I'm not going to brag to anyone from New Zealand about rugby, I think that would be a big mistake.
Kev
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