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Old February 24, 2018   #8
Nan_PA_6b
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
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Bower, I know how it is to try to grow as many as possible. I'm doing something this summer to grow more F2's.

Theory: you don't need plants from this growout to produce over a long season. Really, all you need is to see the shape of the fruit, then taste the ones that look good. You can see the fruit shape well before they're ripe. This means you can rip out all misshapen-fruited plants somewhat early on. If you have seedlings ready to replace those, you can get a second set of plants that will ripen a few fruit before frost. I have the following schedule set up for mine:

March 31– 1st seeding.......36 plants
May 15- 1st planting.........36 plants
May 15- 2nd seeding.........27 plants
July 1- 1st shape eval........keep approx. 9 plants
July 1- 2nd planting...........approx. 27 plants
Aug 1-1st ripe...................9 plants kept from 1st set: taste test
Aug 15- 2nd shape eval......keep approx. 6 plants from 2nd set. Or keep all, for later taste eval
Sep 15- 2nd ripe...............plants from 2nd set taste test

Total approx 15 keepers
Total 63 evaluated

I don't know how many keepers you'll get from each batch; I calculated the odds for my situation. But you get the idea: plant batch #1 and then plant batch #2 six weeks later. This increases your odds of finding what you want in limited space.

Nan
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