Keeping The Babies Warm

Another round of frosts here this week, so the extra cover goes on to hold in the heat over the heatmat. First line of defence is the open ended plastic bulb crates which fit the width of the mat if the ends are folded up, then an old doona cover over the crate to hold in the warmth. Don't laugh, it really works and no temperature loss once the covers come off.

An old doona cover over the lot.

Collapsible Bulb Crates with ends tied up.

A cosy 30C on the heatmat.

A Video of the plants today (Sat).

Highlighting a Few On The List #2

Carrying on from the previous post are a few more worth mentioning.

First off are two more from Jacques, both Spanish, with names that represent a certain district or town in Spain. This one is a ripper of a tomato, small red fruits that look like a miniature tomato, but taste like one of your best fruits. It's a regular leaf plant that grows like any other plant, except that it has  dozens of these small fruits, that look great sliced in half in a salad. The name of this one is Rosado de Ademuz, try it, you may like it too.

Rosado de Ademuz

The next is another district tomato, but this one is a normal size fruit, also tasty, with a nice fleshy interior. The name of this one is Rosado de Huelva, from that town in Spain, but probably not one you'd grow every year, well that's how we found it here.

Rosado de Huelva

Amurskiy is a new tomato here this year, so there isn't a lot I can tell you other than what's on the Internet about it. Amurskiy Tigr (different name) is an early, striped, commercial variety sent from Russia. The fruit is red with green-gold stripes and matures in about 60 days.

 

Amurskiy

Highlighting a Few On The List #1

Some of what's getting grown for the 2020/21 season are shown here, mainly just the few that make a comeback in the garden from time to time. First to get a mention is Wandocka, for it's third year in a row and although it seems stable, is one tasty tomato for a pink.

 

Wandocka

We seldom miss growing UK2000 as one of our regulars each year and although there are lots of varieties that pass through the garden here, this one never lets you down, with flavour and yield.

UK2000

One that Jacques introduced me to was Negrillo di Almoguera, as the Spanish name says, Negrillo which means Black, and this one doesn't disappoint either. Black tomatoes come and go, but for a tomato to get grown here more than once, it has to be good.

Negrillo di Almoguera

The odd one out here for me is Valenciano Clemente, a 'Rare' Spanish red heart tomato, which isn't a tomato I particularly like, but then I'm not the only one living here. The red pulpy paste flesh appeals more to being cooked than any other way of eating them.

 

Valenciano Clemente

The 'Macalister' Tomato - The Beginning

How it all began...
Summer 2019/20 and the smoke from the East Gippsland Bushfires has given us grief here for what seems like months, the smoke often blocking out the sunlight, making a dull day, stretch into dull weeks, it was so prolonged.

My tomato crop had been in for months when I decided to try and cross a tomato plant and with nothing in mind as parentage, I selected two plants growing side by side as my experiment. Nicoleta, a beautiful red fruited tomato from Romania was selected to accept the pollen from the orange fruited Sweet Ozark Orange, so I emasculated two flowers on the Nicoleta and after collecting pollen from the orange, I applied it to both flowers. To cut a long story short, one of the flowers dropped off about two weeks later, leaving just one. Over the following weeks, the embryo grew and soon I had a small tomato formed on the plant. I had placed an orange cable tie on the flower and used an organza bag to cover it, which worked well.

 

By the time the fruit had grown, most of my tomato crop had finished, so I pulled them except for the Nicoleta, which was infected with Russet Mite fairly badly and I thought the plant would be dead before the fruit ripened enough to save seeds. As the fruit started to colour up, the plant was dead and the fruit showing some softening albeit premature, the worry was that the fruit hadn't gone completely red. Now to cut the anemic coloured fruit and see if there were seeds in it, just my luck there wouldn't be. I sliced the fruit and was pleasantly surprised with the visible seeds in it. I saved the seeds and had the long wait until I could grow them, always hoping they'd be viable.

On the 22 May 2020, I sowed the first lot of seed on the heat mat, the new cross which I decided to name Macalister after our River here in Maffra and these were the first to germinate and have been strong growers since being potted up into 100x100mm square pots. In the period between getting the first and second leaves, the seedlings were starting to show how strong their growth was, towering over the other varieties on the heatmat.

 

At this stage, it's still nearing the end of June and this story will be added to as these seedlings grow and produce. I keep my fingers crossed that I'll get something nice.

Today's Random Shots

A few photos from around the garden this morning, after it rained yesterday arvo.

 Thermometer under tomato seedlings

 Frost burnt potato plant

 Red Onions doing well

Patchy parsnips after stray cat dug up this bed

Testing Video Uploading

On the heatmat today. Even though I was alone in the hothouse when I took this video, it had lots of background noise , so I cut that out before posting it.

Letting in The Sunlight

Yesterday, Jan took the shade cover off the hothouse and pressure washed it and also broomed the plastic with a bleach solution to remove the algae and gunk that had built up and was blocking sunlight entering to the seedlings. An amazing difference could be seen.

Today the seedlings are looking happy and are soaking up lots of sunlight and should jump ahead and get some growth on them now.

Tomato Powerfeed

With my heatmat in the hothouse being full with 100mm square pots, I'm watering them each day by wetting the felt mat underneath them. What I'm using, is a teaspoon of Tomato Powerfeed in the watering can, so the capillary action waters and feeds the seedlings as it wets the felt mat. This along with the tomato food in the potting mix and they should start putting on some growth, although the weather is getting cold again.

Catching Some of The Heat

With the pots of tomatoes on the heatmat, I try and reduce the heat loss at night, as this setup is all in an outside hothouse and it gets terribly cold in there on these frosty nights. What I came up with, was to cover the seedlings with a sheet at night, but I needed to keep the sheet away, so came up with this idea.

Using collapsible bulb type crates, I tied up the ends so they didn't drop down and they fit across the pots and onto the lip of the heatmat, sort of perfect as it lets the warm air out, but seems to still hold plenty of warmth so the seedlings don't get effected by the cold.

Look here to see what it looks like when covered for the night.

Three Weeks and Two Days Since Sowing

Three weeks and two days out from sowing the tomato seeds, this is where they are at this stage. We've just came off a week of frosty nights/mornings where the temperature has dipped to freezing and close to it. The seedlings are growing in my hothouse on a heatmat and were covered at night with a sheet and plastic bulb crates.

First variety to germinate was the new cross, Macalister as I am calling it for now, but several other varieties are forming their first true leaves, while a lot are still just cotyledons. The variety Korichnevyy Rebristyy is a black variety, my first year growing them, while Negrillo di Almoguera is also a black, it's a fantastic tomato and well worth growing.

Here's a few photos from this morning.

A Winter Treat for your Wormfarm

Want a Winter treat for your Worm Farm? They'll love you for it, I'll bet. Take one cup of Rolled Oats and add one to one and a half cups with boiling water and then let cool. Feed your worms and watch how quick they'll eat it. This is good while the worms are breeding as the babies eat it too.

Leaf Types

It's always nice to watch your tomato seedlings grow, especially when they grow their first true leaf. It's at this time when you can pick out if the plant is going to grow the foliage type of its variety. There are two main leaf types in tomatoes, a Regular Leaf like we all know and a Potato Leaf, which actually looks more potato like than tomato like.

Sometimes varieties will throw what's called a sport, where it reverts back to a variety from its breeding past, sometimes Potato Leaf varieties are used in the cross and it's unstable genetics will be shown here. Not always will this happen, but be aware that it does occur at times and if you see it, you'll know in plenty of time to keep any odd plants, as they may throw different fruit shapes and colours too.

Here's a tomato seedling forming its first true leaf, between the seed leaf or Cotyledon as they are called. Notice the little  tooth on the new leaves, this is how a regular leaf starts and I'll post a Potato leaf when I get one.

Regular Leaf Tomato

Potato Leaf Tomato

Done and Dusted - 2020/21

I filled the heatmat this morning, so they can sit undisturbed and have warm roots. There are 56 pots in total, with 12 varieties in total here.

Here's the final list:-

Rosado de Huelva - 2
Rosado de Ademuz - 6
Valenciano Clemente - 3
Negrillo di Almoguera - 4
Roma - 5
Kodiak Brown - 1
Amurskiy - 2
Korichnevyy Rebristyy - 3
Striped Rumplestiltskin - 2
UK2000 - 5
Wandocka - 6
Macalister - 17

A Few in Pots

Today I potted up some of my seedlings into 100mm square pots to see how they warm on the heatmat. I usually use polystyrene coffee cups, but they don't allow the heat to pass through them. So far, they are warm to about mid pot, so they should be fine for what I'm doing.

The new cross tomatoes have been given a local name, that being Macalister after our local river, so I now have Wandocka and Macalister to work with.

Here are the seedlings on the heatmat.

Snuggly and Warm

We're into the start of Winter and with it comes the frosty mornings and cold nights, so I had to come up with an idea to keep the tomato seedlings warm through the night. The solution was a bulb crate with no ends, which fitted across the heat mat so the sheet I used didn't flatten the seedlings.

Did it work I thought, so went and inspected it, only to find a warm micro climate under the sheet, the thermometer in the propagation mix sitting on 33C, which was ideal for the seedlings.

"If in doubt - think it out"

Then There Were 55

Well, soon got the numbers up, most definitely more than I planned for, so will have to get a few planted in a couple of gardens here.

Rosado de Huelva - 2
Rosado de Ademuz - 3
Valenciano Clemente - 3
Negrillo di Almoguera - 3
Roma - 5
Kenai Mondo Green- 0
Kodiak Brown - 1
Amurskiy - 2
Korichnevyy Rebristyy - 2
Striped Rumplestiltskin - 1
UK2000 - 6
Wandocka - 12
Nicoleta X Sweet Ozark Orange - 15

Now, I can be very selective when I pot up and cull to suit.

All Quiet Here

Just a quick post to show the seedlings as of today, with 4 of the Spanish Tomato varieties up, so enough to get a plant or two, which is all that's needed.

In this photo is Wandocka seedlings in the foreground with the cross at the rear.

Tomatoes Doing Well

I guess if I don't get any further germination, then I've done fairly well with them so far. I'm more than happy with my new cross as well, with lots of seedlings, enough for two of us here to grow them out, which is great. Today I am down to just the one variety that hasn't germinated although are mostly single plants, but as stated earlier, I have enough plants now.

In the photo are seedlings for Wandocka on the left and my cross on the right.