Planting Tomatoes 2022/23 Crop

Yesterday was the day we planted our tomato plants, 30x in this bed. Between my wife and I, the plants received a hole augered to take the plant and one for the water tubes we use, then a tomato cage or stake. 

The last job is to tie them all in case it gets windy, but that's a job for tomorrow, as we have now fitted a windbreak around the garden.

 

 

Rain Coming

 Well, we've been warned that there's a lot of rain coming, but looking at the radar, I don't think we'll get any of the early lot. The rain band is huge, but as usual it dissipates as it leaves the high country.

Living here in the country, any rain is usually good rain, but I'm not so sure we need too much more.

We'll have to see what happens I suppose. I've actually put off planting my tomato plants for a day as I don't want them washed out.

Using Up Available Garden Space

 We've run out of garden space, so there was an empty space where some Correa's came out of, so now it's been filled up with 3 x Madaya Peppers and 4 x Totem Tomato Plants. Growing Corn is OK if you have the room, but who am I to argue.

Grafting Apples

I met a guy at my seedling sale who has a hobby of grafting fruit trees. Last week he came around and grafted three grafts onto our Royal Gala Apple tree. I'll know in the next 6 weeks if they have taken and will be patiently hoping they grow. I got two grafts of Cox's Orange and one of Spartan.

Setting Out The Tomato Patch

 I know I can get 30 Tomato plants in my garden bed, but it does take some setting out so I get them all in. By allowing 50cm all around I can space three rows at 65cm centres to get three rows of 10 plants.

Below are some photos of setting it out with bamboo stakes, so where the stake is a plant will take its place.

Hardening Off

 My Tomato and Sweet Pepper plants have been hardening off since Saturday, so another day or so and they can go into the ground. I'm planting 30 tomato plants this year as I have two of my own plants I need to grow and see what I get from them.

Planting Time Soon

I'm less than a week from planting my tomatoes and Sweet Peppers, so I thought I'd post this to show how I do it. In the hole for the plant, I add some of the Garden Basic Tomato & Vegetable Food and some Blood & Bone, mix with soil, then place the plant and fill the hole with soil. For us, we use these watering tubes and my recent purchase of the 50mm auger makes fast work of this task.

The plant is a Sweet Pepper from Europe and I'll have 4x plants in for possible seed collection.

 

 As always, video is best viewed in Full Screen

Netting The Strawberry Patch

 

Today's job was to secure the bird netting over the Strawberry patch to keep the birds out. We made hoops out of poly pipe and secured it each side with saddles, then it was time to do the important part. Along each side of the bed, I screwed in plastic covered upside down cup hooks so the bird net had something to hold it, taking out the slack in the net.

 

Now it's just a matter of unclipping the net, pick the strawberries and then re-clip the net. This works well on the garden bed as it's made of sleepers.

 

Mulching The Zucchini's

 Another important job in the garden got done today, that being mulching the Zucchini garden bed with Sugarcane Mulch. The plants have a square pot with the bottom cut off, surrounding them to act as wind breaks, but after the mulch went on, the pots were put back on in the upside down position as the plants are almost too big for the pot the correct way up.

These Zucchini are a cross done here in 2019 between Gold Rush Zucchini and one called Jade Numbat and these are now growing from F3 seeds.

Yellowing of Leaves - Trait of Parent

What you see here is a trait of the parent plant coming out in this plants leaf. There are 6x of our own Zucchini cross in the garden and only one so far that is showing the yellowing of the leaves. The main parent in the cross was Gold Rush which is where this comes from. This plant is one of 3x of this seed, but the others are not changing.

 

Our New Murnong Is Flowering

 New flowers forming on my young Murnong (Microseris walteri). I won't harvest these for another year, but will get lots of seeds from these plants.

Italian Tomato Seed

I did a swap with my nephew, some tomato plants for some tomato seeds.  His in laws have Italian heritage and they love growing tomatoes, so yesterday I delivered the tomato plants and was rewarded with three types of tomato seeds. One is a Roma, one is a heart tomato and the last is a big flat tomato.

Our Three Tomatoes

Here's a photo of three tomato plants that you can't buy in the shops. In this photo are UK2000, Village Red & Macalister all tomatoes I've had a hand in.

 

UK2000 originated in a garden on a dairy farm I was working on at the time. The farmer said to me he had these self sown tomatoes come up in his garden, would I like some. That was nearly 30 years ago and these were the only tomatoes we grew for over 20 years. If they were hybrids, we have stabilised them in that time.

 

Village Red is a tomato that originated in plant pots that I had grown some Yellow tomatoes for a grower from Canada, so is a sport of this variety, but red in colour and a nice beefsteak. It has thrown both regular leaves and potato leaves in that time, but I have now settled on the regular leaf form and it is now stable. The very first fruit off this variety was cut in half and it looked like velvet inside, so I originally named it Red Velvet, but was told by a well know tomato person in the USA that the name was taken, so I just named it Village Red, after where we lived and the fruit colour.

 

Lastly, back in 2019 I grew an orange fruited tomato, but found it too sweet for me, so I took the pollen from it and crossed the plant with Nicoleta, a red Romanian tomato I had growing in the garden at the same time. The following season, the resulting fruit was a yellow globe tomato, with fantastic flavour, which we loved here. I named this variety Macalister, after our river here in Maffra and last season when I grew seedlings for this variety, I got a plant that threw pink coloured fruit which was also tasty like the yellow. So this year I am purposely growing both the yellow and the pink forms of this tomato.

 

When I grow tomatoes here, I always try and pick tasty varieties, whether the ones I grow for myself or ones to sell. Sorry, but only UK2000 has been given out, the other two are just grown here, because we love them.

 

 

Digging The Garden

 A recent photo of the big garden bed getting turned over again, prior to planting tomatoes.

Strawberry Plants Loving The Weather

With a change noticeable in seasons and Spring is definitely here, there is a noticeable change in the habits of the Strawberry plants.

This year we are just growing Torrey variety and have removed all the Red Gauntlet.

Looking good after a dose of fertiliser.

Fertilising Your Seedlings

I'm not sure who fertilises their seedlings prior to planting, but they'll thank you for it. The two I'm using to start my season off with are - Charlie Carp and Dynamic Lifter Liquid Fertiliser.

 

Don't over do the ratios and kill your seedlings before you start, but 50ml of Charlie Carp or two capfuls of Dynamic Lifter in a 9lt watering can is sufficient in the early stages. (Not for tiny seedlings)

Both of these are Organically Based.

 

Potted Up Tomato Plants

Today, I potted up my own tomato seedlings into bigger 140mm pots, as the small cups I've been using, don't hold enough water in them before drying out. Now that the pots are done, I'll soon do a drench for Fungus Gnats, which seem to have moved in, so out with the Hydrogen Peroxide.

I grew plant varieties for myself, some that except for a couple of varieties, no one else will get to grow, here's what made the grade this year.

• Longhorn (2)
  
• Uptown Funk (2)
  
• Karkiano (2)
  
• Liz Birt (2)
  
• UK2000 (3)
  
• Macalister - Yellow (3)
  
• Macalister - Pink (3)
  
• David's Ivory Pineapple (2)
  
• Village Red (3)
  
• Red Rose (1)
  
• Rosedale (1)
  

Plus we'll be growing a couple of Totem and Kotlas for seed.

We Still Have Seedlings

There are still Tomatoes, Mixed Peppers, Candy Cane Capsicums, Zucchini's both yellow and green. plus odds and ends.

Hopefully by the start of next week, the bigger tomatoes will be gone.

First Plants Doing Well

Our Zucchini's and Candy Cane Capsicum plants have been in the ground for about 3 weeks and doing well. In the last photo is the first flower on Candy Cane.

 I still have seedlings for sale if you want to come to Maffra.

 

 

 

 

Sweet Corn is Germinating

 Our Sweet Corn (Snogold Bicolour) is starting to germinate after two and a half weeks. This crop was planted deeper this time to help with stability in the wind here, hence the longer germination time. We had a frost this morning, so good timing on a great sunny day.

Murnong - Yam Daisies

Today is when I planted our Murnong (Microseris walteri) which we purchased last week and I must say the garden bed looks good with the plants in the ground. In the photo, the timber frame is to attach bird protection and is just sitting on the ground below.

These plants have tiny flower buds on them, so hopefully we'll be able to harvest some seeds this Summer. Also included with the 20 plants we purchased, are 4  plants I grew from purchased seeds.

What do you think?

Frost & Sun Covers

We have our Passionfruit trellis set up with its own Shadecloth cover attached on the trellis frame, and a simple way to just pull it up and drop it in front of the vine. There is a wire which protrudes about 20cm so the shadecloth doesn't touch the vine, then a couple of octopus straps to hold it down in a wind.

This is also designed to drop down in Winter when frosts are forecast, so its dual purpose all year. Tonight with the temperature dropping to 1C, the covers are on, including Capsicums, Zucchini & Capsicums.

Some Of Mine

 Here's are a look at some nice tasting tomatoes, well plants actually. The middle plant is Village Red, while left and right are Macalister, this year I get to grow a pink fruit and a yellow fruit plants. The Village Red is a sport of Casey's Pure Yellow I had come up in a tub after growing the yellow. The Macalister is a variety I crossed in 2019 from a red, using pollen from an orange tomato.

After The Seedling Sale.

I'm sorry I didn't take a before the sale photo, but here's what it looks like inside the hothouse after all the plants from the sale went back in.

I did sell some, but it's the chance you take when growing seedlings.

Hydrogen Peroxide Uses

Winter is when Fungus Gnats are active and are attracted to wet potting mix in plants, indoors or outdoors. For the last week I've have my seedlings out in our alfresco area to harden off before the seedling sale, but did notice there are a few Gnats in the garage after I packed up today.  

There is a simple control to eradicate then from your pots and that is to make a drench to kill the larvae that maybe in the potting mix. This is an old nursery trick which is safe for your plants while killing the larvae and hopefully any gnats resting on the surface.

What you need is a 200ml bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide from the Chemist and a container containing 800ml of cold water, mix and then apply so as to wet the potting mix. Easy or what.

Other uses for Hydrogen Peroxide :-

(1) Use it to kill Aphids on your plants*. 

(2) Use it as a Fungicide*.

(3) Soil Aerator. 

(4) Disinfects Garden Tools.

(5) Sanitise your seeds.

(6) Kills Weeds.

*Refer to Google to get the strength you require for your usage.

Buy your Hydrogen Peroxide 3% at Woolworths, Chemists etc.