Good Sign - Flowers

 Seeing flowers on new tomato seedlings while working with hydroponic semi commercial crops, was the indicator they could be placed on the slabs. The home gardener will see the same thing, that flowers are the indicator to make sure they are planted in the garden at this stage.

Assuming this variety of tomato will produce ripe fruit in 65 days, it's from the flowering stage to the ripe fruit stage that's called "Days to Maturity" stage.

All tomato seed packets will tell you how long until maturity, which is how you work out when to expect ripe fruit.

Growing Commercial Capsicums - Ten Years Ago

Just for something different, I'm posting some photos that came up in my Facebook Memories from 10 years ago. These photos were taken where I was working, Chisholm TAFE College in Cranbourne.. In the photos it shows a partial crop of Commercial Capsicums, which have recently had 3x strings attached to each plant. In this room in the Glasshouse are 5x rows of hydroponic growing gutters 40 metres long, so the 800x plants here, will now become 2400x plants, as each plant will grow 3x heads, or leaders, on strings 3.4 metres high. The plants are pruned when they first arrive to grow on strings and are twisted on as they grow.

In the next room were possibly 2000 tomato plants, also growing on strings, but on lowered set up.

 

Last Tomato Seedlings For The Year

Even though they're tiny, I pricked out the last tomato seedlings today in readiness to turn off the heatmat at the end of the week. The varieties were Totem and the green when ripe Russian variety Malakhitovaya Shkatulka. Because of the late sowing, these will be a bit later to go into the ground.

Both are nice tomatoes, the green when ripe Malakhitovaya Shkatulka gets a golden blush on the skin when ripe. Getting your brain around eating a green tomato is hard to get around, but they make a great sandwich.

 

New Seasons Tricot

 It had to happen, well it usually does, a tricot has shown up in the Totem variety of tomatoes. Tricot or three cotyledon leaves is not rare, but will show up from time to time in some varieties. These also show up a fair bit for me in Chillies and Capsicum seedlings too. These usually grow as a normal looking seedling, although at times a three leader plant will try and grow, but pruning will usually take care of the extra growth.

Genetic Mottling

Some varieties of Zucchini exhibit mottling on their leaves, Jade Numbat the pollen donor of our Zucchini cross is a great example.

Now in the newest generation, this genetic mottling is showing on the latest lot of seedlings, which will be interesting to watch as the plants develop. Stay tuned.

Seed Germination Coming To An End

 Finally, after a long cold Winter for germinating seeds, the last of the seed have almost finished germinating. I tried some seed for Totem & Malakhitovaya Shkatulka while the Goji Berries were germinating, so done and dusted on that front goes.

All small seedlings that will be too small for my plant sale will be sold off on Facebook Buy & Sell page, so hopefully they;ll go easily.

Here are some of the smaller stuff.

Our Zucchini Cross Planted

Today, we decided to plant our Zucchini cross seedlings, which is only a couple of weeks earlier than last season. The plants could have been allowed to get bigger, but the weather is changing and it is currently ideal for garden plants. As with the Sweet Corn we will have to monitor the weather closely for frosts, but it's easy to chuck a cover over them for a night or two.

 

Candy Cane Capsicums #1 & #2 Differences

For those that received seeds for Candy Cane Capsicum #1 & #2 from my seed offers will notice that the more variegated #2 plant is still variegated in the next generation. When these first hit the market, they are known to have some variegation, while last season one was more variegated than the other in it's F2 generation.

 

Here's a photo of one plant today, with the variegation showing.

 

Sweet Corn Planted

 This is more of a diary note than anything, but we sowed the Sweet Corn today, six rows across the bed to help with sunlight dispersion.The idea of sowing north/south will give all the plants sunlight as it passes the zenith each day.

We will have to monitor the weather closely for frosts, but it's easy to chuck a cover over them for a night or two.

 

Goji Berries

 Years ago I managed to grow Goji Berries from dried fruit from the Supermarket, but things have since changed, as I think the fruit is radiated. I bought a packet of seed from Ebay and they're starting to emerge, a whole 150 of them if they all come up.

Last time I grew them, I put them out to harden off, but the Sparrows stripped them bare.

 

Red Currant Tomato Seedlings

 Seedlings for Red Currant tomatoes, with small red fruit up to marble size. Very sweet, tall plants that need staking.

My New Cross - Two Colours

 Back in 2019 I crossed a tomato in my garden, using the pollen from an orange tomato, onto a red fruited Romanian tomato. From this union I got a nice yellow fruited tomato with great flavour, then last year something different happened. When I first got fruit showing on one of the two plants, I noticed it was going to be a pink fruited plant. So this year I have two plants to finish the grow out on, a pink and a yellow.

 

 

Attack on The Carrots

 We thought we had Rats eating our Carrots, but we were surprised when others also commented on garden damage, which turned out to be worse than Rats. Gardeners from around Gippsland commented that Satin Bower Birds were wreaking havoc on their gardens and only the day before I commented that the Bower birds were around again this year after hibernating elsewhere.

So the carrots and parsnips have now been pulled, taking away their food source - for now.

Zucchini Seed Sown

 September is just around the corner, so it's the perfect time to sow Zucchini seeds in readiness for Spring sowing.

The seed this year is F3 so another step closer to becoming stable, so with seed saved from three different plants from last year, I have the seedling at the opening cotyledon stage and should be in the ground in a couple of weeks. Sown by numbers, the yellow seeded plants from lat year are #1 & #6 while the green fruited plant is #4 as we are calling them.

More to come on these plants in the coming weeks, but hopefully we'll get them growing soon.

Trying Again - Goji Berries

Back a few months ago I collected seeds from Dried Goji Berries from the Supermarket, with some success I might add. I had done this process back in 2008 with good results, but I'm not sure what happened this time around. I tried a couple of times to germinate the seeds, but I couldn't get any to germinate in the two times I tried.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I purchased a pack of approx 150 seeds and today I sowed them on the heat mat. It's going to take a couple of weeks to germinate this mew lot, so I'll update on them when it happens.

Apart from the seed packet, these are photos from 2008. 

End of Winter Seedlings

 Half way through August and almost the end of Winter for us, so what's still growing in the hothouse after it being so cold here. On the heatmat at present are the remaining Golden Nugget Pumpkin seeds, which don't look like germinating, along with some older tomato seeds I thought I'd try to germinate, some 2008 & 2011.

All Capsicums and Peppers that were started apart from Candy Cane are very slow to grow, so the cold is hindering these. The Tomato plants are going OK at this stage with the ones for my plant sale looking happy, while the new seedlings for my own garden are starting to get their first true leaves.

All in all most things are slow, while the early sowing of Eggplants are mostly dead and the Watermelons seemed to have stopped growing. Okra and Rosella plants are still growing, something new for me this season.