Maybe a Variegated Tomato Variety

 Checking the new tomato plants in the garden, I noticed some variegated leaves on a plant, which looked interesting and got my attention. Knowing I was growing a second plant of the same variety furter down the garden bed, I looked at it and it too had some variegated leaves.

Probably very unusual for this variety, so I sent my friend a link to a post I made on Tomatoville. I'll have to wait until I see what he says about them.

***Addendum

Today (Thu) I took two laterals from these plants and the variegation are showing in the laterals, as seen below.

Recovering After Winter

Here are three of the five pots (10") of my Hibiscus Insularis, or the common name of Phillip Island Hibiscus, from the Phillip Island in the Norfolk Island Group. This species is listed as Critically Endangered under Australian Federal Environment Legislation, with just a few small groups of plants still remaining on the island. These plants grow to about 2.5m in captivity and as they grow, the small leaves get bigger and more leathery. I've protected them from the frosts, but they tend to lose leaves due to the cold Winters, but recover when the warmer Spring weather arrives.

These five plant have been recently potted up so I'm hoping they put on some new growth in the next month. I do have a plant in the ground in the end of a raised garden bed and it is slowly growing, which is good for here in Maffra.

Below are a couple of photos of the potted plants and a flower from the Internet. 

Hibiscus info here

My connection with these plants occurred many years ago when I owned my Ozgrow Garden Forum and was contacted by an elderly man from Mornington on the Mornington Peninsula, who wanted to make sure I got cuttings from this plant he had growing in his backyard. I had a couple of tries at taking cuttings, but never managed to get any to strike. I did however manage to get a seed to germinate and get a seedling. One day I got a phone call from his son to say he had passed and had collected some seeds for me to collect . I found the easiest way to grow these was from cuttings of the young immature seedlings and I have grown several in this time.

Hardenbergia is Poddding

These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago and shows our local form of Hardenbergia in pod after it's recent flowering. There are 100's of pods on this plant, so maybe some may germinate in the garden bed.

Also showing is the plant when in flower and a single flower.

A Look Around The Garden This Morning

 We've had some rain, not much when you compare it to other places in Australia, ut it's enough to keep the garden going strong. We ended up with a mix of colours we weren't expecting from the zucchini's, getting green fruited plants from last years yellow seed and forced Jan to resow in another bed so we can cull if we get more green, as we're hoping to carry the yellow fruit through to the next stage (F4).

Anyway, all seems good with everything today.

1. Sweet Corn & Candy Cane Capsicums

2. Zucchini Bed

3. Totem Tomatoes

4. Murnong Bed

5. Early Strawberries

6. Tomato Bed

7. Tomato Bed

8. Village red Tomato

 9. Tow Macalister (Front)

10. Macalister Pink

11 - 14. Our Zucchini's

Starting A Tomato Cutting

 Decided to take a cutting from one of my plants to have as a spare, this is just how I trimmed the cutting before placing in a glass of water.

 

 

Wash Day

 Now the seeling growing season has finished, it was time to pressure wash all the trays used. Mainly to remove any dirt, tbe pressure washer took good care of the job.

Here's a couple of photos.

Local Rain

Overnight rain here in Maffra measured 2.0mm until 8.00 a.m. today (Thu) then 6.0mm as at 8.00 p.m.(Thu) which is enough for us here at the moment. Our yard is waterlogged from previous rain.

Last Tomato Plants

 I had kept spare tomato plants on a few of my varieties, as a "just in case" option, so I ended up planting them today and binning the rest. Jan wanted one of the yellow Macalister plants for a tub, but the two Village Red found a home along the back fence, so we'll see if they grow.

Strawberry Plants Doing Well

 Our Torrey variety Strawberries are doing well with flowers and tiny fruits showing on a few. These are looking quite healthy and strong and should hopefully be productive for us here.

Fasciation on a Tomato Plant

I recently posted a photo of a tomato plant with a fasciated stem, so today I remedied the problem. In the photos I show you cutting out the worst of it and what the stem was cut back to.

 

Photo 1 The plant

Photo 2 The top cut off.

Photo 3 New side shoots left to take over as the growing tips.

Photo 4 The shape of the stem showing the fasciation.

Photo 5 Cut back to near normal stem shape.

 

Probable cause - cold weather.

 

 

Tomatoes Are Mulched

Forgot to mention that we mulched the tomatoes with Sugarcane Mulch on Thursday before the rain. We bought two bales of Sugarcane Mulch at Bunning's, but opening it found it to be very dirty inside where it has got wet over time, so not ideal as far as that goes.

Macalister - My Hopes Are High

In 2019 I crossed my tomato which I named Macalister after the river that flows through town, by taking the pollen from an orange fruited tomato (Sweet Ozark Orange) and a red fruited tomato from  Romania (Nicoleta). We had the Sweet Ozark Orange growing in the garden, but found it too sweet to eat as a normal tomato.

The Macalister tamed the sweetness and gave me a yellow fruited tomato with great flavour, without being too sweet. Last season when I grew it, I managed to get a pink skinned and a yellow skinned tomato, so this year we are growing both in their F3 filial generation.

Here are both plants in the garden at the present time, planted yesterday. Yellow (top) Pink (below).

First Signs Of Zucchini

 We were waiting to see yellow appear on this Zucchini and that's what we got.

 

 

First Murnong Flower To Open

Here's something interesting for anyone contemplating growing Murnong (Microseris sp). This is the first flower to open on our plants, the flower closes up each night and over time this will give 5 layers of petals when the flower is complete. This photo only shows the one layer. its first.