Flamme calcium tests

Flamme is prone to end rot.  I have three plants in buckets.  Two have each been supplemented with 1/2 cup pure calcium nitrate;  one with none as control.

Transplanting to 5-gal buckets

On May 7, 9, etc.  I starting moving the plants from cowpots into the buckets.  The plants are well rooted - roots are beginning to go right thru the cowpots.

I put a brick in each bucket to stabilize it.  Planting medium is simply Miracle Gro potting mix.

Crepe Myrtle branches:  I saved a bunch of pruned, fresh, straight branches, though after storing about a month in the garage they are all warping a bit and are not quite straight anymore.  Next time, to prevent warping after harvesting them, immediately anchor them on both ends to a T-post till use  (if possible, need to test this.).

2x  46a2.3 F5, 
2x  55a1.2 F4, 
1x:  28d3.3 F4.

2x CA
1x BC
1x HC  maybe 1 more?
1x FB
1x TD

Still need to transplant FL.  Will grow 4 I think; spike 2 with lots of calcium to test if helps stave off end rot.
Still need to transplant Roma.

Disinfecting last year's 5 gal. container buckets

On 5/4/20 I disinfected last year's 5 gal. container buckets as follows:

1. Rinsed off all dirt and debris as best I could with hose.

2. Made Disinfectant:  a 10:1 mix of water and 5% hypochlorite bleach; 5 gal of water + 2 quarts bleach, in a large white tub.  (Actually the bleach was "outdoor cleaner" from home depot, but it's basically 5% hypochlorite with prob a small amount of a detergent!)

3. I could place a bucket one at a time on their side in the disinfectant tub and roll it to cover all surfaces. Then placed the bucket upright in another tub while I rinsed the next one.  Let them stand a few minutes to disinfect.  

4. Finally, rinsed them by rotating them well in a separate tub of water.  Let drip dry in stacks.   

Tomato sowing - April 2020

Tomato sowing, 4/18/20.

For various reasons, I decided not to do a big grow-out this year from any 2019 F2 seeds.  Looking forward to doing that next year if all goes well.

This year I plan to have about 18 container tomatoes in the backyard.

They will be:

•46a2.3 F5, 55a1.2 F4, and 28d3.3 F4.

Each germinated well.

• Previous heirlooms: CA, FL (2016), BC, HC: also all germinated fine. HC had only 3 seeds left! but they all germinated.

Finally, I am growing two heirlooms I saved from Kroger!

• FB/Funky Bell :  a red, small-to-medium, bell-pepper-shaped tomato.  I guess the fruit weight was about 30 grams.

• TD/Tangerine dream:  a medium slicer, very nice globe/beefsteak with orange-y color.

I sowed into standard seed starter mix, heat mat.  Germination went fine.  Also sowed basil, cilantro, and banana pepper plants.

Sowing was 4/18/20.   Transplanted to cowpots, standard miracle-gro potting soil, around 4/24/20.   Hardening off, then fully outside around 5/1/20.

From August 2019

An assortment.

1. White Beauty

2. Mortgage Lifter

3. Carbon?

4. Black Cherry

5. Flamme

6. 28D3.3  F5

7. Uluru Ochre

8. 46A2.3 F5 ?

ZPT x GDZ F1s

I got a couple of ZPT x GDZ F1 fruit, which were interesting as they combined traits of either parent.  The fruits were not as weirdly fasciated as GDZ; however, the larger of the two fruits was pretty funky shaped.  Still it did not have any lobes that were totally separate, like GDZ and RT usually have. In other words the fruit was one unified body.   The smaller fruit was very similar in apperance to Costoluto Genovese, in having the ribbed appearance of ZPT and CG but flat like CG.  In addition, the seed blobs inside the locules were not very juicy and there was an air cavity separating the seeds from the outer rim of the locule, which is just like the ZPT parent.  This trait is seen in "stuffer" variety tomatoes, which are not very popular.  I have seen this trait in one other heirloom I have grown several years ago, Gogoshari Stiped.   It seems to be a dominant trait.

After consideration I think it's still possible that these plants could be from ZPT self-fertilization, i.e. the cross did not work as planned.  Wish I had more than 2 fruits on which to base the phenotype.  But my gut feeling is that they are not quite shaped like the ZPT parent - the first one seems to have the asymmetry of GDZ and the second fruit was too "flat". 

More 55a7 x pBTD F1s

Another 55a7 x pBTD F1 fruit.   I now see the stripe allele is not fully recessive - you can see striping, just barely, but not nearly as strong as in the pBTD parent.
Below is an example of pBTD (Pink Berkeley Tie Dye); image is copied from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds website.