Tomato Seedling Update. 5.1.2021

 The Romas are mostly planted now.  That included the hybrid, determinate Romas, and the indeterminates.

These are Amish Paste and Tiren, both indeterminate but Amish Paste is open pollinated and Tiren is a hybrid.

These are mostly the slicing tomatoes.  They are the second group that I planted out, so they didn't get cooked in the Wall-o-Waters.

Some of these did get cooked.  However, I think they might be starting to grow anyway.  That would be nice.

These are the hybrid Romas.  They are determinate.  I hope they do well.  The nonhybrid Romas are only two plants, and not yet ready to plant in the garden bed.

Then there are the first of the Dwarf tomatoes.  This was a large plastic container that was originally a water feature filter.  I drilled nine 4-inch holes in the bottom, filled with a mix of home soil and home compost.  Also some left over peat moss.  This container should be large enough for these two dwarf tomatoes.  I read that they can be grown in 5 gallon buckets, and this container holds about 5 of those buckets of soil.  They do seem close together.

Sad Looking Tomatoes from Wall 'o' Water. 4.24.2021

 Well, that was a mistake. The water filled teepees to keep the tomatoes warm appear to have worked too well and cooked those plants.  &^%$#!!

A couple don't look too bad but that Lemon Boy looks fried. Oh well.  I have backup plants of several varieties.  Those can go into the ground in a week or two.

Tomato Seedlings. 4.10.2021

 Here are the slicing and cherry tomato seedlings now.  They are all growing nicely.  In order to slow them down a little, I'm not fertilizing, and I move them outside where it's cooler, during the day.  They just need to hold on a couple more weeks for better weather.

The varieties include favorite hybrids (Better Boy and Lemon Boy), hybrids I haven't tried before (Braveheart, Early Goliath), Russian heirloom types (Golden King of Siberia, Moscovich, Purple Russian),  heirloom Classic Beefsteak, a cherries Braveheart, Sugar Rush, and Unicorn, and a yellow volunteer cherry tomato that came up volunteer from last year, probably descended from Sungold.hybrid.

Now that I have the Water Tube plant enclosures set up, I can plant six of these outside in a few days.  That will give the soil inside time to warm up.  I measured the soil temp, it's about 46 in am and 50s in afternoon, maybe 10 or more degrees warmer than ambient temperature.  I'm thinking, maybe the three Russian varieties and  classic Beefsteak, Better Boy and Lemon boy.

These were formerly called "Wall'o'Water" but now called "Season Starter".  I bought three more via Amazon and set them up yesterday.  They hold about 4 gallons of water.

Here they are this morning.  No plants in them yet.

Kitchen Garden Seedlings.. 4.6.2021

These are seedlings for the tomatoes that I was overthinking.  There are Roma sauce tomatoes, nonhybrid determinate heritage types that I wanted to grow and save the seeds.  I got them growing before April 15th, which is usually my deadline to start tomato seeds.  The dwarf tomato varieties all germinated as well - Brandy Fred, Tanunda Pink, Dwarf CC McGee, Extreme Bush (not a statement about political families, just a tomato), Dwarf Johnson's Cherry, Dwarf Improved Champion, and Alpatieva 905A all germinated.   I usually plant several seeds for each, and most of the cells have more than one seedling.

I planted the cilantro and lettuce seedlings in a raised bed.  Both should be OK even if there is a frost.  Also in both cases, there are seedlings germinating in small rows that I direct seeded a few weeks ago.  Those are smaller.  It's interesting that the latest cilantro had very poor germination inside, but the seeds that I planted directly into garden soil are looking better.

The tomato seedlings  that I started earlier are getting too big to keep indoors, but the weather is not warm enough to plant them.   I knew there was a chance of that when I started them.  However, my mental state needed the optimism of starting tomato seeds, so there you are.   I have a few ideas.  First, planting some of the hardier seedlings in the garden will clear up some space on the plant shelves and reduce my trips taking them outside in the am and inside in the pm.  Second, most will go into larger conatiners soon.

 

 

Third, maybe I can plant a few tomato plants outside with protection.  I've used these "Wall'o'water" covers in previous years.  They do the job.  Awkward to work with but they do work. The sides are plastic that has been bonded so they can be filled with water.  One shelter holds about 4 gallons of water.  The sun shines through the water so the plant grows.  The water absorbs heat during the day, and releases it at night, warming the plant.  It's OK as long as the plant doesn't outgrow the covers.  When the nights are warm enough, I can remove the covers.

 

I set up two, and have a soil thermometer inside so I can see how warm it gets, especially at night.  If the soil is above about 50 inside these in the am, I can plant three of the tomato plants.  I also ordered three more covers, which Amazon states will come in about ten days.

Tomatoes and Protective Covers. 5.23.2020

With predicted cool temperatures and ongoing rains, I got out the wall-o-water units that i bought last year, and protected three tomato plants.  I also got, via amazon, a flimsy polyethylene painting tarp, and covered some of the sauce tomato plants, first placing fencing tunnels over the plants so the plastic would not touch them. Most of the nights were in the 40s and 50s, and the days in 50s and 60s.

Almost two weeks later, I removed the protections.

For the plants that were not protected,  they look fine.  The leaves are nice and green, and they grew a bit.
The plants that were protected by plastic on fencing tunnels grew the fastest.  They are sturdy and green and quite a bit bigger.
The plants that were covered with the wall-o-water, were not as healthy looking.  They did increase some in size, but are more lanky and droopy.  I imagine they will come out of it, but the wall-o-water did not do as well as the plastic layer on fencing tunnels, and probably not as good as unprotected plants.

I think the water cones might be better used for colder weather than we had.  Maybe they heated up too much.

Top Left and top middle:  Bodeaceous.  Bottom Left and bottom Middle:  Better boy.  Right:  Supersweet 100 and Sungold.  Only  The left most were covered with Wall-o-water for 2 weeks.

Mostly Ranger tomato plants, protected by plastic tunnels, or no tunnel.  Plus Early Girl protected by wall-o-water.  5.23.2020

Early Girl Bush Tomato, protected by wall o water for 2 weeks.  5.23.2020