More 2016 planning

To do the F2 grow out, I am thinking about renting two plots next year...!  One for grow out, one for varieties.

I can't tend all that by hand.  I will have to use a weed eater.

The tarp needs rethinking too .  Although having tarp along the actual planting line is good for weed control, i was a lot of effort and time to cut holes for plants and stakes.   And I need a lot more stakes next year.

To reduce labor do this order:

1.  Put in stakes and plants.

2.  Put tarp on walkways between rows. Like 2014.

3.  Gotta mulch the plants like crazy to control weeds. Eg lotsa straw.  Need some straw bales.

4.  Use weed eater , weekly, to zap the weeds among the tomatoes that do get thru the straw.

5.  Prune tomatoes.

For the initial setup I might even need some help...

more notes for next year

Well. I'm always learning stuff about what works and what doesn't in the garden, though sometimes it feels like I'm finding out more about what doesn't work than what does.  So here are thoughts about what to do next year.

Of course, it's critical to have strong plants - so the germination in sterile medium is key. period.
Next, don't start them too late.  They may grow OK, but I am noticing the fruit set is poor now that the weather is hot.  This is pretty variable across varieties but I think it's real.  For example, I have a late-starting, but healthy, OS plant in my backyard that is not setting any fruit.    Exceptions are HC, which is sort of unstoppable once it gets going, and the F1 IRxCP, which seems to have 3-5 fruit per branch in a very similar manner to the IR parent.

ML is supposed to be wilt resistant but I think they are prone to the browning of mature leaves, which is probably fusarium wilt.   CP too.

Staking...Well I had a broken pole, so duh, wooden stakes can't last thru 2 seasons.   Not much point in the florida weave if the poles break.   So I may go to metal poles - at least for the ones at the ends of the rows because they have to hold up the most tension.

If an F2 growout is really to be done, there will have to be a lot of plants and a lot of staking!

Planting things farther apart is important.  Mainly, wider rows.   Planting stuff close to the "paths" between the plots was not great because they don't get mowed a lot.  So that does not allow access.

(Also planting onions 4 in. apart makes it necessary to hand weed a lot.  ugh.)

Pruning...There was so much rotting of fruit on the ground that it's just a big waste.  Might as well prune aggressively.   This should promote upward growth anyway as the plant will put its energy there.   I made a note to do this last year but I didn't do it.  Mostly because of the time involved I guess.   I will have to factor in more time.

Using hay or straw mulch would be a good idea up front for weed control.  

Is this a stamenless plant ??

So in my little backyard plot this year, I planted only 8 tomatoes.   Some of these were really small stragglers that died.  But, surviving to the flower stage were one "CP", one "OS" and one F1 IRxCP.  Fair enough.

The F1 is bearing fruit.   The CP and OS have flowers - a bit late since they were planted late, but they are there.  So finally some of the CP flowers were maturing, and I was interested to take a look and see if fruit were coming, or if I could try some crosses for the heck of it.   Then when I started looking at the flowers they seemed weird.  One had a very long pistil emerging and the rest of the flower looked kinda short.   I peeled back the sepals and there was just nothing that looked like petals or stamens.  There were small, lobe-like whitish structure where these should be.   Another bud on the same branch was slightly younger but had an emerging pistil. After peeling it seems to be the same as the other one.

I tried to take a photo as night was falling - not perfect but I think shows what I saw.  I had peeled away about half of the sepals to expose the gonadal parts.  Note that the pistil had already extended far beyond the sepals by about 3-4 mm.   The stamens and anthers were not really apparent at all, except for the small lobed structures I alluded to above.

Anyway, I figured these buds were worth crossing attempts!  A stamenless flower cannot produce male pollen; selfing is not possible, so it's a good opportunity for crossbreeding.  Unfortunately the F1 IRxCP plant that I had in the backyard had no flowers left.  Too bad, that would have allowed a cool backcross to the CPs.   Instead I had to settle for using OS flowers to donate pollen.  I brushed some peeled OS stamens onto the two CP pistils.  Therefore these are "CP female x OS male" attempted crosses; that is, Cherokee Purple x "Orange Slicer" which itself is an F1 hybrid.

If it's not a stamenless mutant, then the petals and stamens must develop much later than the pistils in this CP variety.    Over the next few weeks it will become more clear if this is really "stamenless" or not.

Harvest time 2015, Aug 1 update

Almost forgot to update.  Last weekend (Aug 1) I picked a decent amount of tomatoes.  And a neighbor gave me a bunch of romas, so I froze about 4 quarts of tomato puree (seeds strained out).

Some notes on this years' results... Since I have fewer plants, my yield is lower.  But a few things are different this year.  Of course, the plants that got a later start are behind and not really turning ripe yet - so the big plum varieties are not ripe yet, for example, but I see good fruit set.

My florida weave setup was mostly good - except for the southwest corner, where the end pole tipped over so much it's hardly effective.  So I think the take-home messages are:

1. Use stronger poles.  Maybe go with metal posts next year... More $$$ and heavy to move around but they would be an investment.  Also they won't bend like the wood.

2.  The twining really does have to go left then right around each successive plant to hold them in place.  If you skip the alternation, they will lean over into the next plant.

3. It's probably really important to prune the low branches. I lost a lot of fruit to critters and rot, because they were on the ground, close together and covered by foliage.  

If I am really going to try to attempt an F2 grow-out next year, I'll have to work hard to get a serious florida weave setup for a lot of plants.

Finally, I managed to try a few more crosses too.  I am up to ~8 total attempts so far. The first few failed but I think it's a war of attrition.

Reisetomate is probably a fasciated mutant

I had to look hard to find a description of the Reisetomate phenotype in the literature.  However, an allele of the fasciated gene seems to generate this phenotype.  fasciated (fas) is a well-documented gene that increases fruit size and changes the fruit's internal structure, by increasing locule number.  In fact all "beefsteak" tomatoes probably have mutations in either this gene, or a similar-functioning gene called locule number, or both.   The fasciated mutation in these varieties seems to increase carpel number.   So does Reisetomate - but with a key difference.   A review article by Steven D. Tanksley has a photo of a clearly Reisetomate-looking funky tomato, and he describes it thusly:

"...Moreover, one mutant allele of fasciated is associated not only with more carpels but also with unfused carpels (Figure 1D)".   
The Plant Cell June 2004 vol. 16 no. suppl 1 S181-S189

Because the carpels remain unfused, the result is a fruit with separate locules that are not really attached to each other.  Neat.

Here is a comparison of Reisetomate vs. a "ribbed" tomato, Costoluto Genovese.   The latter probably has a different allele at fas or a similar gene.  I think.

F1 hybrid tomatoes: IR x CP

Here are some F1 tomatoes from my only successful cross last year: Indigo Rose x Cherokee Purple.  This was satisfying because it clearly is phenotypically intermediate between the two.   (In other words it really was an intercross, not a self-pollination.)  The size is clearly slightly bigger than IR and, I think, slightly "less round".  Unfortunately I don't have the IR parent tomatoes this season for direct comparison.  This F1 is about 2 inches in diameter; IRs are about 1.2-1.5 inches by my recollection.

You can see slight, patchy darkening on the skin.  It's not strong but distinct up close and sort of grainy.   Here's the same pic with jacked up contrast so you can see the darkening better. (arrows).  (FYI the very thick stem is a sunflower sport next to the tomato plant.)

Here's the foliage of the F1 for the record.

Finally, here's  a good closeup of a ripe F1 to show the anthocyanin pigmentation is clearly visible in a very speckled pattern, restricted to a sun-dappled area on the skin.

cukes wat r u doin

7/11/15 - just a few tomatoes so far. etc. etc.

Today despite a lingering cold I managed to get to the garden.  The tomatoes are all self sufficient now - not much else to do till harvest, though I did add a few more loops of twine to a few plants that were tied on solo poles.    It's definitely true that the mat has pretty much eliminated the weeding right around the tomatoes themselves.  The florida weaving (while mainly in better shape than last year), still sort of requires heavy pruning of bottom branches else they are gonna just grow all under and around anyway. Otherwise you definitely need a very wide row space to get in between the rows of plants.   Some are too close.  

Tomato harvest is a week or two behind last year and I still have some plants that look like they need a few more weeks to produce.  So maybe they will, or not.   Anyway there will still be a good harvest in the next few weeks.  Today I picked one cherokee purple that is underripe but will ripen nicely at home in a few days, and about 2 dozen Hawaiian Currant.  Boy those HC plants grow big - they have really long branches that invade their neighbors.

Also I picked a few peppers - 1 banana, 1 "mild jalapeño" and what I believe are 2 of the "salsa peppers".  Nothin' on the poblano plant.  Unless the 2 "salsa peppers" are really very young poblanos.  But they look too skinny to me.

I've got several pumpkins growing! Although the plants look a little dry.  Also, I weeded onions some more - a pain, because they are too close to the edge of the plot and got overgrown.   And picked some basil.

The IRxCP F1 hybrids now have nice, round green fruit that are now about the size of a nectarine.  Definitely bigger than IR, smaller than CP - and not a trace of purple color visible.  Nice fruit set.

Finally, I did one cross, between Reisetomate (female) and Mortage Lifter (male).  Would rather have used Cherokee Purple pollen but couldn't find good flowers on CP.   I think I managed to get a little pollen from ML flowers, using black paper plate material to collect.  After brushing this onto an RT stigma, for good measure I just took a ML anther and brushed the stigma with it.   Tagged OK. This cross is = 2015 #1 RT x ML.

At the home garden, the Straight Eight cucumber is a winner.  Lots of very long straight fruit and no bitterness at all! so it lived up to the "burpless" marketing.  This is a great cucumber.   The home tomatoes are not much to shout about.  2 died and 2 are still very small due to having late starts and just not much root system before planting.  The home IRxCP has some fruit but the others are not doing much yet.

Update 6/27/15

Got almost all my stakes and twine up today.  All 4 pepper plants are ok with a few little peppers already.  Pumpkin plants are really taking off!   I had to hand weed onions and only got about halfway thru them.  And I discovered a Reisetomato wa thriving - I thought the last one had died but I was wrong!

Summer heating up.

Finally back at the garden after a long vacation with the family.   Weeds had been getting a bit rowdy, but I pretty much got them under control.  I realize now that with onions planted 4 inches apart the weeding is tough.  On the other hand I've got so much tarp down that I actually do have the whole plot sort of weeded, which I was never able to do at all last year.  So the tomatoes are pretty much okay as far as weeds.  Other things of note... The pepper plants are alive although not as vigorous as I would like.  On the other hand the pumpkin plants are doing great.  Finally the tomatoes.  I lost a couple more - including the single reisetomate that was left.  But most everything else is doing okay; some of the first ones I planted have nice green fruit.

So after I did weeding, I put in about 10 stakes to do some Florida Weave-ing.  I still need to put up more stakes and twine.  Next weekend.!

Just a few peppers.

The other day I bought 4 pepper plants on a semi-impulse purchase; my reasoning is that homemade salsa will require it of course!  They are:  Banana, Poblano a.k.a. Ancho, "Mild Jalapeño", and "Salsa pepper", which is some sort of hybrid marketed as a salsa ingredient.  I don't want super hot peppers, just a little heat.  The poblano and "mild jalapeño" have Scoville numbers around 1000-1500 which is not super hot.

Well, the three most recent planted IR and the remaining KB didn't survive transplanting to the garden.  So I planted the 4 peppers in their spots.  I forgot to check if the one other IR was still alive. Probably not.  So no IRs this year for breeding purposes.

The pumpkins didn't look too good today - pretty wilty despite the moist ground...I drenched 'em with water but I don't have high hopes.  It's getting hot out there.  Summer heat is beginning and if the plants aren't well established by now they are gonna have a hard time.

On the other hand, in the home garden several of the plants are growing well, especially the IRxCP hybrid.

In one of the other community garden plots someone has a bunch of huge tomato plants.  Like chest high, big and lots of flowers.  Made me feel inadequate...Although they are planted too close together for my taste, so I give myself points for careful layout.  :)  

Later than last year

Just realized how far behind I am vs last year.  In 2014 I planted from Apr. 19 - May 3.  This year it was from May 18 - June 3.  A full month later.  C'mon guys, grow!!!

Noticing that although the seed starting mix certainly gives healthy plants, it might be good for the potting stage to use a mix of seed start mix plus other things to encourage more root growth.  E .g. Something with plant food?  Just a thought.  Maybe 5 inch pots instead of 4.   Maybe I should just build a freakin' greenhouse next spring.

At last, I finished planting.  I took a Tuesday off to do errands and this was number one on my list. I've mega-tarped out the community garden now.  The final count is 46 surviving tomato plants as of today, although I bet 3 or so won't make it .  Most are doing OK though.  We got some hard rains over the last few days, and unfortunately a few of the ones I planted on Sunday were buried a little by mud.  But boy the ground is good and wet.

In addition to the tomatoes I have: 2 basil, 2 pumpkins, about 3 or so garlics, and a row of 40-odd onion.

More plantin'

Today I got about 12 more tomatoes in the ground, did some weeding, and set down more tarp.  Not quite used all the tarp yet though .   I got 2 more tarp rolls and a big box of staples, and still need to get 1 down.   Only a few tomatoes died since last time. Sadly I hoed down a little one on a row end by mistake!!

Still got to plant 6 tomatoes and 2 pumpkins.

Finished transplanting to pots

Last night I finished transplanting remaining 2nd round seedlings into pots.  I ran out of new 4 in. pots but realized I had a lot left over from the first round - all the ones that "dropped off". But I was worried that those were contaminated with fungus.  So - I baked 'em!  in the oven at 190˚ F for ~25 minutes. Hopefully that will have zapped lingering fungus.  Then, I transplanted as the other day, with the seed starter mix wetted with Actinovate-fortified water.   Nice.    All the seedlings are looking nice and green and good sized so far.  Very different than the first go around.

In short, the first round of sowing had these problems: 1. Didn't use enough light (need closer and longer program on the timer, 15 hrs+).  2. Probably, was too wet and that started dropping off a little.  3.  Should have used Actinovate at the start.  4.  Transplanted into "potting soil" which is probably loaded with fungus.

Second sowing:  1.  Kept light closer and 15 hours on timer per day.  2.  Not too wet.  3.  Actinovate was used from the start.  4.   Transplanted into additional seed starter mix moistend with actinovate.   :)

Transplanting round 2: notes

It's May 21.   Tonight I transplanted about 10 of the round 2 seedlings into 4 inch pots plus some 5 in left over from last year.  I am simply using more of the M.G. seed starting mix as transplanting soil.  To prepare it , I put about 1/3 of a bag in a bowl and moistened it with a bit under a pint of water, in which I had mixed 1/4 tsp of Actinovate.   Plus, I pre- bleached my holding trays for the transplant pots.  I am trying to be really aggressive about controlling damping off.  

Since I really need to get everything in the garden next weekend (5/30/15) I will try to transplant everything this weekend so they have at least a week to harden off.

Community garden progress

On Sat. May 16 I planted another round of tomatoes to bring the garden total to about 29.  A couple from last weekend had died - little ones that probably had some unseen damping off when i planted them.   I replaced them with new ones.  Also, I planted 2 basil plants, 6 garlic cloves and about 40 onion sets.  We got rain today so the soil is in pretty good shape.

I will need more crampons and weed mat.   Maybe some straw mulch to cover up non-mat spots.   I gave up on cutting slits in the weed mat for the tomatoes - too much work, too many crampons, too much damage to the mats.  So I am now just putting the tomatoes between mats.  But I am keeping the mats closer together than last year.

I still don't have the whole garden covered but I have a couple of weeks before it will get to be a problem with weeds.

I really want to get the new tomatoes all in ground on weekend of May 30.

Germination round 2 progress

On 5/8/15 I planted 34 wells of seeds.  Some had 2 seeds per well but not all.  I kept the tray on heat pad; soil was moist but not too wet. Using Miracle gro Seed Starting Potting Mix.   This is totally different from regular "potting mix" which is half made of wood chips and twigs.  It is definitely decent for seed starting and is part sphagnum, very loose and fluffy.
5/11: 5/34 germinated so far..  I removed some of the condensation from inside the tray.
5/12:  15/34  germinated so far.   Removed consensation; turned on grow light, closely positioned.   ~15 hours/day.
5/13: 17/34 germinated .   Now the top layer of soil was getting dry for some wells so, I removed the lid, turned off heat pad and added a little water to the dry wells.
5/14: 19/34
5/15: 23/34
5/17: 28/34.  Many of these are pairs of sprouts since I planted 2 seeds in some wells.

5/21: 28/34; secondary leaves out on about half: looking pretty good !

Started planting in community garden today

I got about 20 tomato plants in the garden today;  CP, BC, 1 RT, HC, CG, 1GZ; etc.
I am trying to tarp the whole garden.  So I put down six (3x25') tarps.  I still have one 3x50' unused tarp left.  The plot size is 12 x 50'.

Re-sowing

Going to re-sow a bunch of seeds to replace the damping off problems.  I am using Miracle grow seed starting mix, in a tray that I sterilized by spraying w/bleach.   This time I will go easy on the water and give plenty of light very early on.

Will not use any "potting soil" or "potting mix" from Scotts ever again.

Damping off sucks

Yep, it does.  About 8 more collapsed today - including one FL I thought was "too big to fail".    Down to about 40-odd survivors.  Basically, I'm convinced that they have mostly stalled out due to the fact that the potting soil was totally lame-o.     At this rate I just hope that I have about 30 surviving plants.  For example, there's only 1 or 2 left of my IRxCP F1s.

And it may be too late to sow any more seeds.  But since many of the seedlings were small anyway, I figure what the hell, maybe I should just sow some directly in the garden this weekend.    The thing is that they'll need good watering so I have to remember to get down there and water them every couple of days.    Hmmph.  

Seedlings small...anxiety

It's May 5 and I'm concerned my seedlings will not survive transplanting to the garden next weekend.  Also I'm about 2 weeks behind last years schedule.  This is mainly due to just other stuff I've had to do, but there was not way the seedlings were ready either.  Most seedlings are still about 3 inches high with just a few secondary leaves.  Also the water may not be hooked up yet in the big garden.   I'll need to water everything well when I do plant of course, else it will be in vain...

Damping off ... attrition

So several more seedlings died today all due to damping off, the hallmark of which is a pinched appearance of the stem where it meets the root.   This apparently is the result of a combination of not enough light + too much water, then fungus.

Although I used a sterile planting mix for germination, there probably was some stalling as I only have one grow light and this might not have been enough for both trays of seedlings.  I might have had too much water but, I did not really get much damping off until I started hardening them this week.  What I did see was the stalled growth with some of them - I am betting it means this made them more susceptible to the damping off when I brought them outside.  Then the exposure triggered the damping off.

So I am down to ~60 seedlings from ~80, and I'll probably lose a few more.  But many of them are more robust - thicker stems, more secondary leaves which are bigger etc. and I bet they will thrive.

I transplanted them into Scotts "potting soil", not "potting mix". although I still don't think this is optimal. Still sort of bark-chip laden but workable.  Probably, not ideal for what I am doing.  I need to get a more proper 25 bag of better soil for this purpose next year.

I bought 4 mortage lifter plants by mail order and 2 Cherokee Purples at Home Depot just in case.

Survival log today: ~20 dead from damping off. OK means I think they will make it.
ML:  6 OK (2 , + 4 from mail order) ;  4 poor condition.
CG: 3 OK, 2 poor.
CP:  6 OK (4, + 2 from store); 5 poor or small.
OS: 2 are marginal and 2 are poor.
FL: 6 OK.
RT: 1 good, 2 poor.
BC: 2 OK.
SS; 6 all small.
KB: 2 poor/small.
GZ: 3 OK but not big.
HC: 6, all small but this may be normal for these.  Tiny seeds.
IR: 2 OK; 3 poor/small
IRxCP: 4 OK.  

Total in OK shape:   ~39.

I also had about 8-10 basil seedlings and about 3 of those have died from damping off just like the tomatoes.  Hm.

Three tomato seedlings that suffered from damping off

Struggling seedlings

Well, it's May 1 and I wish my seedlings were growing more...Many of them stalled out when they were about 2 inches high and just putting out secondary leaves.   There was a lot of (I think) premature yellowing on some of the cotlyedons.  What I've read suggests too much water - although I didn't get much wet wilt at all, so it was a subtle thing this time around.  I was trying to keep em' moist but not soggy.

Flamme mostly doing good.  Some CPs, some BCs, and my IRxCPs doing best.   SS, KB, MLs not as much - kind of stalled.

Around 4/28 I started all-day hardening , bringing them in at night since temps are dropping to 50s at night but days are sunnier and less stormy.

Garden was plowed a few days ago.

Transplanting done

Got the rest of the seedlings moved into 4 inch pots this weekend (4/19/15).    I think that some of them are kind of spindly.  They got off to a leggy start the first week or so but then some sort of slowed down.  Yellowing cotyledons, and even some secondary leaves, may be indication that things were too wet.    For example, a Reise is one of the biggest plants even though they were planted last.  However I think things will pick up now that they are in pots.  Will try to keep them outside at least a few days this week.

April 1 update.

Planted Reisetomate on 3/28 and got these, and some more HC, on the heat mat.  By today I see 4/6 Reisetomate have sprouted, and some of the HCs.    So germination is just about all done.  I count 81 "wells" have sprouts.

March 27 2015

Tomato seeds planted on 3/19 have not sprouted above soil yet, but I wasn't using the heat mat this time since they are in the same trays as the already germinated stuff and didn't want to dry everything out.   So these should be coming up over the next week.

Reisetomate seeds arrived today along with some bonus cilantro seeds. I'll plant these both this weekend.

Reisetomate

I may get these seeds because they are so weird shaped...Reisetomate.  What a great mutation.  This seems like a "ribbed" phenotype that has gone to the next level. !

2015 Germination

Everything I sowed March 7 has germinated pretty well.  I was very happy to see my CPxIR seeds germinated well!  ~80%.    I was then eager to see if I could already see phenotypic differences intermediate between CP and IR.  I believe that the F1 cotyledon leaves are greener and larger than those of the IR seedlings, suggesting they really were fertilized with CP pollen.   On the other hand the F1s seem to have a darker color in the stems than the parental CPs.   Won't know for sure if they were cross-pollinated till fruit emerges.

Since I had no more seeds left for Flamme (FL) and Hawaiian Currant (HC), I had to re-order these and   sowed them yesterday, March 19, along with some extra CP and BC seeds, and sweet basil.

Some more notes and thoughts

Looks like I will only plant about 10 of the varieties from last year.  I should put down lots of tarp - and early - it's totally worth it.

Here is my list to plant this year.

Black Cherry, Cherokee Purple, Costoluto Genovese, Flamme, Green Zebra, Hawaiian Currant, Indigo Rose, Kellog's Breakfast, Mortgage Lifter, Orange Slicer, Super Sauce, and the CPxIR hybrid seeds. = 12 varieties.

CPxIR hybrids: Plant them all as I'm not sure if these will germinate well - since I harvested these myself.

I plan to sow these next Saturday March 7 2015.

Var.	Sow	3" Pots	Garden
BC	4	3	2
CP	10	9	8
CG	8	7	6
FL	4	3	2
GZ	6	5	4
HC	4	3	2
IR	10	9	8
KB	8	7	6
ML	12	9	8
OS	10	7	6
SS	10	9	8
totals	86	71	60

And also, CPxIR, sow 12+ seeds.
It's OK to sometimes plant 2 seeds in single seedling pots at sowing stage.  e.g. For ML if goal is to have 8 live plants in garden, sow 12 seeds across 8 seedling pots so some will be doubled up. Helps ensure the numbers will be maintained at the transplant stage.

Some choice Mortgage Lifters and a Super Sauce at just under 1 lb

From summer 2014.