All in

Got the SCF farm plot all planted on Sunday May 20.   Layout in the 2018 map page link.  It has the F4 plants and some leftover heirlooms.

Rescued seedlings / damping off

A successful experiment.  I didn't have too many seedlings damp off, but I thought about the fact that when damping off occurs it only affects a very small area of the stem right at the soil/air boundary.  There must be something about that boundary that allows the infective growth.   

Now, tomato stems have hairs that can develop into roots if they contact the soil.  So I reasoned that if I took a damping-off seedling that had not yet wilted and (1) pinched off the roots below the damp-off site, and (2) replanted it deeper in fresh soil - with about 1.5 inches or more of the stem buried - and (3) treated with daconil and (4) kept it moist, then the stem would re-root and the plant could recover.    Tried this with two damping-off seedlings: an HC and an F4 46A-2.  Turns out it worked.  About 3 weeks later they both have started growing again - lagging behind the others by about 2 weeks of stalled growth, but now taking off.  

Still need to plant!!

I still have to put tomatoes in the farm lot.   Got about 23 F4 plants and about 16 heirlooms, tho I'll prob still give some of the latter group away.

Turns out I was fortunate to start seedlings late this year.  We apparently had a frost around April 19, which is a few days after the standard April 15 mid-TN "safe transplant" date for sensitive veggies.   Although I hadn't been hardening off my seedlings yet I was recording outdoor and bale temps and definitely had 35 degree temps in the morning around that time.  My backyard elephant ear plants normally survive the winter, but did not this year, so I suspected that April 19 killed them as they were starting; however I checked records and remembered that we had unusually cold low temps in Jan and Feb - below 10 degrees!  and maybe that did 'em in.

Containers 2018

I have twelve* 5-gal buckets on the back patio; holes drilled for drainage.  Tomatoes transplanted into them on 5/9/18.  Bucket mix was as follows:
50 qt bag miracle grow potting mix + about 1/2 of a 25 lb bag of "composted manure" which, since i got it from home depot, was "compost + manure".    I added 1/3 cup of my organic bone compost., which is basically a 7-8-6 fertilizer.   Mixed all this in the wheelbarrow and it was enough for about 4 buckets.
* Got one more bucket = 13 total.
Container tomatoes: PBTD, BZ, GZ, ZPT, RT, CP, BW, GDZ, CG, FL, KB, CA? 46a-2

Hoping to try some crossbreeding on these too.

Straw Bale Experimenting

This year I'm trying to grow tomatoes in six straw bales, as per Craig LeHoullier's book. On 4/1/18 I started his regimen for prepping the bales: basically, watering each day and spiking with granular fertilizer about every other day so they compost inside.  Being the science geek I am, I diligently recorded daily internal temperatures in the bales.  They are "supposed" to warm inside to 120˚ or more, then cool down, over the course of a few weeks.  Well, I never really saw internal bale temperatures over 80 degrees.  However the bale temps were consistently above the ambient air temperature, even on cold days.  And we had kind of a cold April with one or two nights down to 35˚ or so.   Anyway, from what I've read it seems that the increased internal temps, though not spectacular, do indicate microorganism activity was consistently doing its job to break down the bale.     By the first week of May I started seeing some mushrooms popping out of the bales.  They always died within a day.  This is exactly what one is "supposed" to see with conditioned bales!

On 5/2/18 I put 9 transplants in the bales, and 3 more transplants a few days later.  12 total in 6 bales (2 per bale).   Soaker hose in place.   As of 5/13/18 the transplants are thriving.
Transplants: CA+MS ; WB+BC; HC+HC; FL+FL;  SG +  F4 #55A-7;  plus 2 each store-bought basil and cilantro in one bale.

5/16/18 update:   Good growth so far.