Still My Favourite

I have to say that when the vegetable garden is idle, I tend to revert to my favourite pass time of all, plant propagation. I've grown so many native shrub cuttings over the years, I could have grown a forest or two with the plants. Currently my hot house is 2/3rds full of cuttings or about 600, which includes Natives, Citrus, Berry, Flowers along with seed sown for Ponytail Palm and Illawarra Flame trees. Much has struck and I'll be reliant on the rest striking before the 28th July when I'll sow the seeds for my tomato crop. Then of course there are my rose cuttings, all 70 of them, taken from a variety of plants from around the district, hopefully few more to come when rose pruning starts in June/July.

Life is good in the garden at the moment.

New in the ground is a Meyer Lemon tree, while two Heritage Raspberry canes sit in pots waiting to be planted. Citrus cuttings for Meyer Lemon, Lisbon Lemon and 'Sublime' Lime sit in the hothouse, so I'm ever hopeful of a strike or two.

Talking about Peppers

While recently on the subject of Capsicums, of which Chillies and Peppers for an intricate part, I decided to get a photo of some of my Peppers growing in the back yard. Using my wife as a measure, I took the photo below which shows the growth well over 5 foot in height (150cm) and there are 4 of these plants growing side by side. They are currently ripening their fruit and I'm loving seeing the masses of red each day. I'm even thinking of overwintering some of these plants and just shroud them in a plastic enclosure for when the frosts start.

New in 2009

This year I will be trialing some Slovakian Peppers, a Chilli and a Tomato that will be new to me, so fingers crossed I get a good season for them. First on the list is "Granka", a pale cream coloured, sweet, apple type Pepper which I'm hoping are as good as I've heard. Next on the list is "Barkol" which is a long, thin Chilli with medium heat and maybe good to cook with although anything too hot will be just grown for seed. The last of these will be the "PCR" a light green, short pointy sweet Pepper, all will be tried and if we like them they'll make the list for next year.

A new Slovak Tomato will also be grown this season with "Perun" which is a small yellow pear shaped fruit. Also making the list will be Purple Ukraine, Tamina from the U.K. and lastly is Crisana from Romania which we tried the season just gone and they rate highly here.

Winter Crop

Finally getting away from Tomatoes and looking at what else is happening in the garden at the present time and there is some green showing.

Garlic


Swede

Autumn Cherries

I think I'll get a feed or two from my autumn crop of Black Cherry tomatoes, on the single "cutting grown" plant growing in the garden at the moment. Yesterday I took the blossom bags from several trusses that were well formed, so there will be some fruit within the next few weeks. This will actually make the third growing of this variety this season, so I can be thankful they grow and mature fairly quick.

Seed Time

It's that time of year when the collection of seed is starting to come to an end and the seed drawer gets filled with all the goodies collected. Here are a few photos of some that have been done recently, or are currently being done.

One of my Peppers


Seed from above Pepper

Qarabali Seed


Tomato Seed

Autumn Tomatoes

So far so good, with Siletz tomatoes ripening at the moment, which is a lot quicker than I imagined. After a week in Adelaide we came home to ripe tomatoes, which although aren't as big as the ones that grew outside during Summer, they are still a nice sandwich size. The 'Little Hearts' are forming fruit, although I pulled 3 plants out yesterday, as I'm having second thought about them as the weather is definitely cooling quick this season. Even staying with what's growing in the hothouse (3 x Siletz & 2 x Little Heart), we should get tomatoes for another 6-8 weeks.

Here's the ripening Siletz this weekend.

Adelaide Tomatoes

While in Adelaide recently, I managed to get hold of some tomatoes that are for sale at private residences along Tapleys Hill Road in Fulham Gardens. These tomatoes have quite thick flesh under the skin, very meaty and quite a few seeds. I cut one for a look and scooped out the seed and was amazed at what was left, possibly a good tomato for making sauce from.

The next day while at Central Market in the centre of Adelaide, I found most sellers of tomatoes carried this variety, labeled as 'Sun Ripened Vine Tomatoes'. The market price was $1.99kg, quite a bit cheaper than the $4.00kg I got mine for.

I know a few who would grow these tomatoes for sauce, so I may add a few plants to my seedling sale.

What do you do when you find some interesting tomatoes like these when away from home for an extended period - you'd probably want to ferment them, which turned out a simple task. The seed, juice and pulp was collected in a plastic drink bottle and allowed to 'rest' in the warmth of the car for a few days until a good scum had formed on top (lid removed outside car regularly to let the gases out). Then a simple task to wash them and dry them before returning home. A visit to a kitchenware store and I was soon able to wash them through a tea strainer, which was compact enough to fit in luggage and be used again.

Second Crop Doing Well

The plants in my second crop for the year are doing well, with fruit swelling every day on my Siletz plants.

In the hothouse with them are two Little Heart plants which I'm pinning my hopes on getting at least one ripe fruit for seed for next season, which will put me one filial generation ahead with the grow out I'm doing on this variety. So far so good, but I won't be too disappointed if they don't make it through to maturity, I'll have at least tried.

The End Is In Sight

The end for some Tomato Plants came a bit early and we have now got four plants with ripening fruit on them which we'll keep going for another two weeks. We're getting to the stage we need to have a spell away from Tomatoes, as we've been eating them since mid November, but we've had a productive year and no-one's complaining.

At present the three 'Siletz' plants in the hothouse have good sized fruit forming, while the 'Little Heart' plants both in the garden and hothouse are growing well.

I've dug over an area to plant our Garlic on the 20th of March - so all in all, the garden is still getting some attention, albeit minimal. The Peppers are starting to ripen now and seed is being collected from overloaded plants, so some seed will now be passed on to those who wanted it.

Ring In gets a name

When the time came to cut the 'Ring In' tomato (as we referred to it below) we got a nice surprise as to what was inside. Cutting off a few slices, we soon found a deep red flesh with the appearance of velvet, so we'll use this thought and name it "Red Velvet'. When we tasted the slices, we were pleasantly amazed at the deep tomato flavour in this fruit, as it was very nice. I've saved a dozen seeds from the first tomato and will now wait on a fruit carrying a pink ribbon, so I can get pure seed for my growing on of this variety.

Ring Ins and Wrong Labels

This year I dug up a small section of lawn to plant out a few tomato plants that I had, because I was short on growing space. One of the plants that found its way into this patch was a self sown seedling that came up in a tub with some Zucchini's, the tub and its contents having been used last season. I thought at first the tomato plant may have been from a yellow variety I grew in the tubs last year, but soon realised that this was a regular leaf plant, where last years were potato leaf. Today I picked my first ripe fruit from this plant, but I cannot work out what variety it is, so all I can do is call it a 'ring in'.

Here's a photo of the fruit.

The very next plant in this same bed as the fruit above, is also producing ripe fruit, but how disappointed was I when I saw the fruit shape and size, realising that this one must have been wrongly labeled and not the tear shaped cherry tomato I was expecting. I have since found that these could possibly be a variety called 'Ceylon'.

Here's a few to show you.

Who Dares Wins - Autumn Planting

After the heat this week, I've potted up the 10 seedlings of 'Little Heart' tomato (shown two posts earlier) which I will attempt to grow as an Autumn crop, mostly in the hothouse, but some in the garden as normal tomatoes would be grown. Joining them are 3 x 'Siletz' plants (in the background of the photo) and 5 x Struck Cuttings from various plants I had growing at the time. My objective is to try and get at least one ripe fruit from these small seedlings which will put me ahead by one generation with this variety and anything else I get will be a bonus, with late fruit.

Peppers soon

It won't be too long before the Peppers are starting to mature on the plants, with lots of fruit showing some size at present. I like to try different things each season and this year is no exception with two types I'm hoping perform well, although some seed would be nice - in the first instance.

Here is a fruit on one of my Cappia Peppers from Turkey, these I'm led to believe are a nice sweet fruit.

Another is this, one of 5 plants of this variety I'm growing.

Second Season Tomatoes

I'm going for a second season growing this year with about 20 tomato plants in total which I hope to grow until the cold weather stops them. I've grown 10 seedlings for Little Heart and they're approaching 10cm high at present, plus I have 25cm high seedlings as well as plants from struck cuttings which will make up the numbers.

Here are a couple of photos of the seedlings and plants, so far.

'Little Heart' seedlings


'Siletz' plants

Hot Chocolate

This year when I grew my seedlings for Brandywine Pink tomatoes I found I had one single seedling with a regular leaf, where Brandywine is normally a Potato Leaf variety, so I knew I had a ring in. I planted this seedling in the corner of the vegetable garden in the hope it may produce an new unknown variety.

This plant has grown well and is now producing mature fruit that has an unusual 'brownish' colour to its skin as it ripens, which is most unusual. Could it be a cross with a Brandywine Pink, or just a ring in seed.

Here's one almost ripe on the bush.

The same tomato after being picked for a couple of days and left inside to ripen fully

And finally the same tomato cut ready to be taste tested.

Although not the best tomato we've eaten, it is unusual with its brown skin so we've given it a working name of Hot Chocolate because it was so hot when we cut it - plus its brown skin colour.

The ever reliable UK2000

We like to grow tomatoes here and our all time best favourite is UK2000, a regular plant in our vegetable garden. These tomatoes are quite tasty and actually taste like real home grown tomatoes should.

Here's one on the scales that is 264 grams.

Tomatoes - New from Old

We've just had a taste of some hot weather with a couple of days in the 30c+ range, so upon hearing the forecast I decided to take some cuttings from some of the tomato plants in the garden that I haven't yet got seed from, so as not to lose a season if anything happened to any of them. Filling some 3" Supertubes with Propagation Mix and wetting it down, I took lateral cuttings from the plants and stuck them in the tubes. These tubes were then placed in the bathroom, our dullest room for daylight during the day. After 3 days I can feel resistance on the stem which would indicate the presence of roots, so all seems well and I have 5 cuttings which I'll allow to grow inside for another week, then I'll harden them off.

Only leaves that would be below the level of the mix in the tube were cut off and the remainder will be trimmed when the time comes to plant in the garden. This is a good way to get mature seedling size plants going at anytime during the season.

Have you tried New for Old?

Black Russian - A Tasty Tomato

Here's a tomato that is popular with a lot of people and it's something we haven't grown since 1996 - It's none other than 'Black Russian', a great tasting tomato and usually one that the 'B' store has as an early tomato. The truss had about 4 or 5 fruit on it and with high daytime temperatures expected over the next couple of days, anything with any colour is being picked in advance so as not to spoil.

Wouldn't You Know It

Just when everything is going good with the tomatoes in the outer garden, what should happen, but Blackbirds are eating the fruit on the tomatoes with any sort of colour. Off to the 'B' Store and got 3 x Rat Traps which I promptly set with cut up pieces of a tomato which they'd half eaten earlier.

More to follow I hope.

All Heart

Just when I thought my Little Heart tomato had settled down with its genetics, what should it throw up at me - none other than a "heart" tomato on one of the plants growing in the garden. The single heart shaped fruit is so much a reminder of what this plant produced for me last year when I first discovered it. I suppose that from the 5 plants I have grown this year, one odd shaped fruit isn't too bad.

I had 4 plants that were surplus to my needs this season and I gave them to my friend Neely to grow as they had a big future ahead of them, but sadly due to unforeseen circumstances, these plants threw odd shaped fruit, so much so they could be described as mutant. Sorry Neely, next year they'll be good - I hope.

Going Banana's

Here's a brand new one for me this year thanks to my friend Templeton. It's called 'Green Banana' until a better name comes forward, these are another of the Spanish tomatoes found in the markets of Barcelona.

Inside the Hat

Here's what the inside of Monomakh's Hat, a very meaty tomato with an average taste that can be used as an all rounder. Probably one that may not make the list next year, but a plant that gives large fruits and would be good for the home garden.

Seed Save Begins

I started washing tomato seed saved from bagged blossoms today and also saved more seed from collected fruit. In my laundry cupboard I now have plastic cups containing seed from Black Cherry, Sprite, Lime Green Salad and more Little Heart. All this seed will be used next season for my plant sale, but there are a lot of varieties still in the garden yet to ripen that will be added to this list.

I sowed the seed today for the F3 generation of Little Heart, which I'm expecting to grow as my hothouse Autumn crop, along with a few 'Siletz' which are currently just getting their first true leaves.

Here are some 'Nicoleta' seeds from last season.

A Top Hat

Well we finally picked our big pink heart tomato called 'Monomakh's Hat' and it's a beauty, a whole 327 grams which is 11.5 ounces in the old scale. I hope this is a nice sandwich tomato and I'll probably find out within the next few days.