A Seed Saver's Garden

[SPedigrees]

Did a huge tomato harvest today, lots of box flats full. I was determined to get photos of each variety, since sometimes this gets by me in a season.

For any short season, challenging circumstances tomato growers that might follow this thread, this post is for you. I tried SO MANY tomatoes this year bred to do well without a long season, or without a super hot season and yet also have an early maturity in particular. I

The downside now. It was a TERRIBLE idea to grow these and let them sprawl. None of them were able to stay up even a little, despite being smaller plants. Some of them were slightly scalded by the sun as a result too - this has never happened in my gardens. So, I'm guessing the cold tolerance they have also might mean not terribly tolerant of hot, direct sun on the tomatoes. I will only grow these in cages in the future. They do not grow well without support. So grateful to have these special tomatoes.

Interesting that cold tolerance may mean no tolerance for hot, dry conditions. Not a problem for me right now with less sun and a lot of rain, but something to consider if climate change takes another turn.

Even with cages, a number of my plants always seem to escape the confines and flop over. I usually end up tying up many of these escapee plants/branches.

I'm watching your early varieties with interest, since my season here is also short.

 

[heirloomgal]

Wow, amazing tomato harvest! I'm impressed by the variety of short-season tomatoes you've tried. The photos look great, especially the 'Zuckerstraube' and '0-33' varieties.

Thanks @mikethegardener! And welcome to the forum!

 

[heirloomgal]

Interesting that cold tolerance may mean no tolerance for hot, dry conditions. Not a problem for me right now with less sun and a lot of rain, but something to consider if climate change takes another turn.

Even with cages, a number of my plants always seem to escape the confines and flop over. I usually end up tying up many of these escapee plants/branches.

I'm watching your early varieties with interest, since my season here is also short.

I don't know what those standard tomato cages are for, everyone struggles with them and they either topple over or the plants grow outside the cage and the branches still flop around and/or break. I abandoned them for all but the smallest plants. My go to has been to make circular cages from livestock fence material - not my image but they work great - no pruning, no sunscald, big harvests, no staking ( the one in the pic is, but I've never done that and they stay up). Only downside is sometimes you have to do hand over hand to bring up the lower growing tomatoes. 21 - 23 inches across is about perfect. I wish I had used them this year!

 

[heirloomgal]

Ate my last home grown iceberg salad. It was deelish though. I can't complain really, mid August is the farthest into the season I think I've ever gotten with homegrown lettuce planted around June 1st.
I will miss you!

 

[Decoy1]

Ate my last home grown iceberg salad. It was deelish though. I can't complain really, mid August is the farthest into the season I think I've ever gotten with homegrown lettuce planted around June 1st.
I will miss you!

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Interesting that you write that because I did exactly the same - ate my last Iceberg lettuce yesterday. It’s always a battle to keep lettuce for longer as they bolt so quickly as temperatures rise.

I keep thinking that if I were to get the timing right I could have lettuces right through, but perhaps I’m kidding myself and feeling a sense of failure for no reason.

My last sowing date was 2nd May. I’m wondering whether sowing in mid to late June would have helped.

 

[digitS']

DW has become such a fresh lettuce person this year. She started lettuce seed in mid-July — shady location, to be transplanted out mid-August. No Summer sowing of seed has worked in the past. Not even late-Summer for Fall harvest.

Only once, have I grown a Spring planting of iceberg lettuce. Always, it has been leaf lettuce with romaine for several seasons. All this has been generally successful. Romaine has done the best for bolting and Summer Crisp (Batavian) has been an okay, number 2. Neither are DW's favorite as she goes for leaf lettuce.

We will see about the current timing ... it is hot & dry, here. A change to cold is often quick and lettuce just slows to a standstill, unlike something like bok choy . It's a good thing that she also likes stir-fry .

Steve

 

[Pulsegleaner]

1. Flowers on odd mung bean have opened. They ARE yellow, which is normal for the group (though with a brownish cast that is a bit unusual,) but the placement is odd; mungs tend to put their flowers on short stems coming out from between leaf nodes; not on long whippy tendrils (then again, mungs generally don't have tendrils to begin with.)

2. White skinned beans have started to ripen. Looks like at least one has the "paper skin" trait still.

 

[heirloomgal]

I’m wondering whether sowing in mid to late June would have helped.

It's something I've always wondered too. I don't think I've ever sown lettuce past the first week of June. I would have assumed the icebergs would make it for a very long time, but I noticed the last head I picked had actually started to rise up and get ready to fully bolt. Late lettuce starts would be worth trying, but for some reason I never have seed planting energy/enthusiasm past early summer.

 

[heirloomgal]

Got to try some of the new tomatoes and a pepper in diy Greek salad tonight. The 'Sweet Datil' peppers are quickly turning red, and the pod set is pretty good so I picked one of those to put in, and they definitely smell and taste like a habanero but truly without a molecule of heat. It's an intriguing flavor for sure, with a really 'fresh' flavor.

Finally tried the 'Sweet Baby Jade' tomatoes & 'Ambrosia Gold' cherries - decent at best (thus far) regarding the former, the latter are absolutely outstanding. I always kinda laugh when tomatoes get described as 'sweet' because that often translates in reality to mean 'bland'. But these were strawberry level sweet, like really sweet. I thought they were great, but people who like that sour twang in a cherry tomato would probably not like these. I will definitely grow Ambrosia Gold again. 'Sweet Apperitif' was also really good in there, and given that we had a deep, penetrating rain all night, the fact that not a single cherry on the plant has split is impressive. That cannot be said for the others.

I saw the prettiest garden trick today on a friends' social media; she is making the loveliest braided garlic which includes everlasting flowers. She's trying specifically to do a Sicilian technique. I found a few pictures off the net. Such a great idea, I almost want to grow some garlic just to make some of these! lol

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Managed to taste a fragment of one of the Phantome du Laos today (the first two got some REALLY serious rot spots*, so eating most of either would have been impossible).
To be honest, I doubt I'll grow this one again next year. The color may be interesting, but it doesn't seem to taste of much. And, while it's hard to tell at this point (with all of the murky half rotted flesh in the way), I think it isn't great at making seed either, I think I saw a LOT of aborted ones. Not to mention, I picked up some sort of pink blushed white at the farmers market stand a few days ago that actually DOES taste of something, so saving some seed from that and growing it probably makes more sense (my space is limited, so I can't save and grow everything).

*One of them actually appeared to have developed colonies of Brevibacterium linens (the bacteria responsible for everything from foot odor to the smell of washed rind cheeses), which I wasn't even aware COULD eat tomatoes (I thought it fed on proteins mostly).