I may be wrong in my understanding of this but you planted peppers and tomatoes with the soil level way above the cotyledon leaves and then covered the soil with plastic. I can understand the plastic as a soil warmer and as a weed preventative. I understand planting tomatoes deep, up to the first set of true leaves. How large were these plants when put into the ground and how deep were they planted. I am missing something here. Please explain in simple step by step explanations of EXACTLY what you did before and at planting and the care of the plants thereafter.
OK. Seeded in Feb. That means that after 4-6 weeks the plants should have been transplanted. This makes it NLT April 1 that the plants should have been planted. A week ago makes at least 6 weeks that the plants were in containers that should have been in the ground. But you couldn't transplant because it was too cold. These had to have been extra large transplants and if they had not been repotted at least once were rootbound. You said earlier that you plucked off the bottom leaves. This would have OK for the tomatoes but not so good for the peppers. Deep planted tomatoes will make roots up the stem, peppers won't. Tomatoes and especially peppers dislike cold soil. If nighttime temps were in the 40's or low 50's this is too cold for them as the soil temperature has to be in the low to mid 50's. Anything below 55F is detrimental to tomatoes. Now about the plastic. You said that the plastic wasn't any part of your plants. In the first picture it shows a plant that is planted in the plastic and in the second picture it shows a plants root system half covered with the plastic. Plastic is not a bad thing in your climate. One thing about plastic is that it doesn't allow any evaporation. If you watered your plants through the hole in the plastic it could not evaporate and then you watered it again and again To make a long story short what I believe happened was transplanting into too cold of soil, watering way too much and transplant shock. Water doesn't hurt a plant, the lack of oxygen does. Do you have a soil thermometer? If so what is the temperature at 5 inches deep? If it is below 60F tomatoes will grow very slowly, at 55 they basically stop growing. Five inches is about how deep a large tomato should be planted, deeper for BIG transplants. How deep did you plant yours? These two plants shown could possibly survive but they will always be a weak and stunted plant. You will be better off getting more transplants.
