I didn't Expect That!

[digitS']

In the garden -- here are a couple examples of what what unexpectedly happened.

I am always trying to find tomato varieties that can produce well, be early and ripen their crop in a normal season. Bloody Butcher can do that. I've seen it described as a little tomato with a big tomato flavor - I think that's right! It is also VERY EARLY to ripen fruit.

Bloody Butcher should be in my garden every year. (My wife hates the name so we call it "Jolly Rancher" and she is more comfortable with that .)

A couple years ago, the greenhouse was terribly overcrowded with plant starts and I set a whole lot of tomato seedlings out in an unheated plastic tunnel. Overnight, the temperature in that tunnel fell to 37F. The seedlings had never been out of a heated greenhouse once during their short lives. Many of them wilted and a few of them died - at 37!

I know it was 37 because the thermometer was in the middle of the tunnel - beside the Bloody Butchers. The only plants that ALL died were the Bloody Butchers. I had several hundred plants and a couple dozen varieties in that tunnel. Some lost leaves but only those very early-maturing Bloody Butchers died! I didn't expect that!

In 2011, I tried Dagma's Perfection. I figured that any improvement that Gary Ibsen could make to this heirloom and then - name after his wife - had to be a good tomato. It seemed to have an early enough days-to-maturity rating. I started some seeds!

By July, I figured I had made a big mistake. The plants would flower but just NOT set fruit! Then, hot summer weather set in. We usually have some very hot weeks during late July and into August. The dry sunny weather continued into September and those Perfection plants ripened fruit like crazy! It was the same story this year - nothing on those plants until SUDDENLY, they were covered with fruit!

So, here is an early-maturing variety that CANNOT set fruit in cool weather . . . I didn't expect that!

How about in your tomato patch or gardening generally -- what has been unexpected???

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hmmm, Dagma's Perfection. I take it that is an open-pollenated variety? I may do a web search soon for seeds or at least to read up on it. Where did you get your seeds?

Everything I plant pretty much quits in the heat of summer except a couple of hybrids, 4th of July and Big Mama. Those really slow down but at least I usually have something for fresh eating. Didn't work this year with our brutal summer, but most years I can at least get some.

You make a real good point too. I don't judge a tomato variety until the growing season is over. I've had some that produce realy well early and then quit (Pink Brandywine did that this year) and some that don't do much early but go like gangbusters later. I've had years where Mr. Stripey and Black Krim did that.

 

[digitS']

Well, that's why I edited in the word "normal" to describe a season, RR. A warm spring just seems to be a lost hope here anymore. It wasn't really common in the past but could be hoped for. With almost "coastal" springs, getting some of the warm-season plants started is tough.

Your most recent experience is probably getting things to survive through all the heat. We've got some of that and lately have had these long, mild autumns - altho' frosts on the 11th & 12th of September dang near knocked the feet out from under me this year.

Thessaloniki is supposed to be from "sunny Greece." It is also early for an 8 ounce tomato. It toughs it out thru the heat of summer here, real well. What is probably Grandma's Porter tomato does too. Porter was an east Texas seed company 50 - 100 years ago.

All of these are indeterminates so they should just keep on, keeping on. I know that some varieties have trouble setting fruit with HOT weather. I don't have any experience with that; not so I've noticed, anyway.

Altho' I mentioned Gary Ibsen, I bought the Dagma's Perfection seed from Tomato Growers Supply. I like that outfit and the lady who runs it.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

This spring I started 100 or so pepper plants, hots and sweets, and planted them a good 2 weeks after our average last frost date.
They got hit by an early June freeze and turned to mush all the way to the ground.
I didn't expect that!

A while later I was weeding those beds ( after the freeze I had belatedly piled straw on all the carnage ) and under the straw I found about 25 of my peppers regrowing.
I really didn't expect that!

The peppers grew, bloomed and set fruit. A mama moose and her twins wandered in for a drink at the birdbath and stayed for pepper
hors d' oeuvres.
Sure didn't expect that! :/

Got hit by another early freeze. I could have protected the remaining plants but didn't. My bad.
Harvested a couple of big bowls of peppers anyway!
After all that, I didn't expect that!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know exactly where you are on that Idaho/Washington border but I wonder if your elevation is high enough for nighttimes to cool off enough for tomato set? Just a thought. We like to think that it is one thing or another causes things but in reality it is usually different things working together that has the effect.

It wasn't just the heat, the drought played a huge part in it. The drought and my watering led to insect and mammal infestations that normally aren't that bad. But yes, the heat played a huge part.

In some ways I envy people that live where the climate is predictable. You know what to expect and you can plan for that. I've had cool wet summers and hot dry summers. I've had unusually early and late freezes on both ends of the season. Some years certain things, whether species or varieties, do great. Some years I get abslolutely nothing from them. About the only thing I have been able to get consisttently here is peppers and eggplant and some years are much better than others.

I did a quick look at Dagma's Perfection. It looks like something I'd want to try. Thanks for that.

 

[hoodat]

My Mortgage Lifters are like that. They just get bigger and bigger but you begin to think you'll never see any maters then all of a sudden it's full of them and goes on till frost kills it or it just gets worn out. I often get ripe tomatos from them in November. I remember I had fresh from the garden tomatos for Christmas dinner one year.

 

[nittygrittydirtdigger]

Along about mid-June we had house guests and I got a couple of big projects at the same time. The weeding was dropped in favor of hanging out with the guests when I wasn't busy working. As a result, we ended up with a garden full of white clover that drew the honey bees like crazy and allowed for full pollination of anything even remotely blooming. I didn't expect that when I neglected the garden! We just mowed the clover down around the plants, and the whole garden is still green and pretty, even though the veggies are mostly done for the year.

 

[digitS']

I have often wondered .

. . how much benefit it would be to have the fruiting plants, like squash & melons, swarming with bees.

The squash & melon fruits would probably have a better chance at having proper shapes if the flowers were visited regularly by bees and seeds were developing even inside the plants. I know that this is true with tree fruit and I'd bet it is true with garden veggies.

Nitty, you are a lucky gardener it wasn't some nasty, competitive weed that decided to invade your garden. Even something like Black Medic might not have been as good a neighbor as Dutch clover.

BTW - it was a Dutch ancestor who was the first European in my family to come to North America. He is one excuse I use for having grown into a garden weed myself.

Steve