A Seed Saver's Garden

[Decoy1]

Now this is by far the strangest thing I have EVER seen in tomatoes. The company sent an insert with this tomato too, noting not to start it until 4 weeks before planting because it dislikes being in a pot. I found that very odd, and hard to imagine. It's standard for an 8 week start ahead date, so I didn't really pay attention and just did what I normally do. But now the quirk of the plant, probably resenting being in a pot, is showing. My guess is that this variety must be quite wild; I've grown tomatoes with fairly wild genes and haven't seen this though. It might be wild in the sense of having no selection put into it for pot culture. It grows to 1 foot tall and 2 feet wide. I guess at least this one will need a starter pot already. They had good reason for that insert warning me about this tomato, 'Oja de Venado

That is very odd. I’ve grown the wild tomato Solanum pimpinellifolium and it didn’t protest at all at being in a pot. .

It’s difficult to imagine what these young plants would get in the ground that they can’t get in a pot. I can only wonder what it would be like if you put it in a pot of your garden soil and gave its roots plenty of space so that it couldn’t possibly know it was in a pot!

 

[heirloomgal]

That is very odd. I’ve grown the wild tomato Solanum pimpinellifolium and it didn’t protest at all at being in a pot. .

It’s difficult to imagine what these young plants would get in the ground that they can’t get in a pot. I can only wonder what it would be like if you put it in a pot of your garden soil and gave its roots plenty of space so that it couldn’t possibly know it was in a pot!

And it's getting even stranger. These seedlings get more crumply dry, and unhappy, with each day. I need to do some research on this variety, I really may need to plant another batch of seeds in a week as the package instructed. Their prediction of 4 weeks being the height of misery in the seedlings is turning out to be accurate. Just when you think you've seen it all with weird tomatoes!

 

[heirloomgal]

About a month ago I got a surprising as well as depressing email. It was from a lady who had gotten seeds from me a couple years ago, and had really liked a freebie I had put in her package. She was so pleased to find such a uniquely good fresh bean variety, and on a guess I had made about what she might like.

Of course I know that this happens, it's just part of the cycle of life, but she related that she has gotten to an age where gardening is now more than she can do. The email was to say thanks for being able to have those beans for the years she did (not many), and to offer some of the seeds she had saved of them, back to me. I was a little speechless, and almost felt a bit teary. I don't know this person, but the finality of that felt like a wallop. I can't imagine not gardening. Ever. And to be confronted so directly with the end of someone's gardening life... heavy.

Today the seeds arrived in the mail. They were perfectly beautiful, smooth, shiny and well formed. Round black marbles. She knows how to grow wonderful bean seeds that's for sure. And she sent a lot, much more than I was expecting, 30x what I had sent originally. It was really quite touching. I sat at my desk this afternoon and looked at that bag of beans, trying not to think too deeply about what the bag of beans meant. The wheel in the sky just keeps on turning I guess.

 

[Decoy1]

About a month ago I got a surprising as well as depressing email. It was from a lady who had gotten seeds from me a couple years ago, and had really liked a freebie I had put in her package. She was so pleased to find such a uniquely good fresh bean variety, and on a guess I had made about what she might like.

Of course I know that this happens, it's just part of the cycle of life, but she related that she has gotten to an age where gardening is now more than she can do. The email was to say thanks for being able to have those beans for the years she did (not many), and to offer some of the seeds she had saved of them, back to me. I was a little speechless, and almost felt a bit teary. I don't know this person, but the finality of that felt like a wallop. I can't imagine not gardening. Ever. And to be confronted so directly with the end of someone's gardening life... heavy.

Today the seeds arrived in the mail. They were perfectly beautiful, smooth, shiny and well formed. Round black marbles. She knows how to grow wonderful bean seeds that's for sure. And she sent a lot, much more than I was expecting, 30x what I had sent originally. It was really quite touching. I sat at my desk this afternoon and looked at that bag of beans, trying not to think too deeply about what the bag of beans meant. The wheel in the sky just keeps on turning I guess.

It was particularly moving as she still cared enough about the beans and the seeds and your kind generosity to want to do something to honour all three of those things. I imagine that still caring that much must add to the poignancy of what is missed for her.