Tomatoes are Planted. 5.6.23

I had to take three weeks off due to eye surgery and recovery, retinal detachment. The ophthalmologist has given me the OK to resume activity now. 

I had started tomato seeds about April 15.  They grow quickly.

I planted the fresh-eating slicing, beefsteak type, and salad type tomatoes in last year's onion bed.  Fortunately I already had it cleaned up.

These have been in the ground for a few days.  Soil temp above 60, night temp mostly above 50 and day temp in 70s.  

Varieties from my saved seeds -

Reisentraube, Dwarf Brandyfred, Extreme Dwarf, Dwarf Champion Improved, New Big Dwarf, Livingston Dwarf Stone, Dwarf Golden Champion, Ukraine Purple (Not dwarf), Dwarf Johnson Cherry, Dwarf Tanunda Red.  The dwarf types and Heirlooms are all open pollinated, so I can (and do) save seeds. They are also all really good, and hard to find seeds for them, and the dwarf habit is really helpful for me.

Open pollinated, new to me - Dwarf Chocolate Champion, Dwarf Muliagul Moon, Dwarf Eagle Smiley, Puck.  

There is also an Early Girl Bush hybrid as a standby variety.  It was my best producer two years ago, but last year didn't do much.  Also, it's multi-disease resistant, which is important.

The bed for sauce tomatoes was a bigger challenge.  This was last year's garlic bed.  The corner stone blocks had tipped over and the sides splayed open, not holding the soil. To repair them, I had to dig the soil from the sides and pile on top.

Then, level the soil under the corner blocks, replace them, put in longer rebar center pole but leave some sticking out the top.  Replace the plastic lining to better preserve the wood - chicken feed bags, which are a reinforced plastic.

Now comes the important part.  I cut lengths of recovered, treated 2x4s about a foot longer than the side planks, and drilled 1/2 inch holes to fit over the rebar.  After sliding those in place, the bed looked like this.

Then I leveled the piled up soil.  There is also a big bag of coffee grounds added to the soil before leveling.  Ready to plant tomato plants.

I think those 2x4s will really hold this bed together for a very long time.  The corner stones just cant tilt or move now.  After other chores are done, I'll clean them more thoroughly and stain them along with the sides of the beds.

Then I planted the sauce tomato plants.  Five Supremo and seven Roma VF.  The Roma are my saved seeds, maybe four seasons (generations) of saving the seeds.  Supremo is a modern, multi-disease resistant hybrid.  I expect it to be more productive than the Roma, but I always like to grow two types as well as keep saved varieties going for independence.

There were some extras.  I always plant extra seeds then I don't know what to do with the plants.

I wanted to get the cardboard in place early to prevent weeds and prevent fungal disease.  I'll need to work around that when I install the irrigation.   I'm glad they are planted and mulched and the raised bed refurbished and repaired.  There are some hot days ahead.

Verbascum, Stocks, Dusty Miller, Echinacea, Rudbeckia Seedlings. 4.10.22

 I separated the verbascum, stocks, and dusty miller seedlings into their own cells.

The stratified Echinacea and Rudbeckia seedlings germinated rapidly.  Based on my starts in January, the Echinacea didn't need stratifying.  It didn't hurt, either.

This old LED distorts the image color.  The newer ones don't do that.

Starting Potatoes. 4.10.23

 The potato starts came from Fedco.  I bought early, mid season, and late varieties.  Envol, Red Norland, Kennebeck, and Elba.

I thought the brown discoloration inside one was concerning, so I wrapped it up and threw it into the trash.

The others looked OK.  Before cutting the others, I sterilized the knife by washing in hot water and soap, and then en with denatured alcohol.  I also changed to a new cutting board.

There were some small, sprouting Kennebec potatoes in the garage.  I planted the best looking ones 2 days ago.

Last year I planted too many potatoes.  It was a challenge digging them, especially with the heat and wildfire smoke.  I'm planting about half as many this year.

Eggplant Seedlings. 4.10.22

 Here are most of the eggplant seedlings.  Many of the old plastic pots are degrading, brittle, cracking and broken.  I bought these new ones.  I hope they will last longer.  Thicker plastic.  After use and hand wash, they go through a dishwasher cycle to sterilize.  I haven't tried that yet for these new ones.

I started these seeds in January.  They were slow at first because the sunroom wasn't warm enough.  They should grow faster now.

The varieties were from old seed packets.

Black Beauty (heirloom)

Black Shine (Japanese hybrid)

Nagasaki (Japanese heirloom)

Tomato Seedlings. 4.10.22

 I started the tomato seeds about March 15, I think.  I have been up-potting them into individual cells of the silicone 6-packs over the past 2 weeks.  This is about 2/3 of the plants.  The 

The green packs were up-potted a week ago, the blue packs were up-potted yesterday.  Growth has been much faster since repotting (green packs) compared to the ones I just did (blue).  The delay is OK, it's still very early.

Some went into taller containers, if the stem had stretched taller.  That was mostly the romas that were in the window instead of under LEDs.

As for varieties, Most are dwarf types or determinates.

From my saved seeds:

Dwarf Extreme Bush (heirloom) (red, small)

Livingston Dwarf Stone (heirloom) (red, medium)

Dwarf BrandyFred (open pollinated, dwarf tomato project) (brown/purple, very large fruit)

Dwarf Golden Champion (heirloom) (golden, large fruit)

Dward Tanunda Red. (open pollinated, dwarf tomato project) (red, very large fruit)

Dwarf Champion Improved. (heirloom) (pink, medium fruit)

Roma VF (heirloom) (sauce tomato)

Reisentraube.  (heirloom, not dwarf but seems fairly compact) I thought the Reisentraube looked too vigorous, compared to last year.  In case it was mis-labeled, I re-sowed those seeds last week.

From newly purchased seeds:

Sakura (Cherry hybrid, red)

Puck (open pollinated, very small plant)

Supremo (determinant, red sauce type hybrid)

Dwarf Moliagul Moon (open pollinated, dwarf tomato project) (light yellow)

Dwarf Eagle Smiley. (open pollinated, dwarf tomato project) (red, cherry)

Honeybee (hybrid, semideterminant, from an old seed pack) (yellow cherry)