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Old December 20, 2016   #1
BajaMitch
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: California
Posts: 84
Default What Did You Learn This Past Season?

Well now, for me, it was quite a season. Did many experiments and learned a great deal

What did you learn this season?

Let me start this thread off with a few of the many lessons I learned.

I bought a seedling, Early Girl, for $3.98 to replace a failed plant in the middle of the growing season. Planted it right away in a 4.5 gallon bucket with good ferts, great potting mix recipe, placed in a great sunny spot, and watered it properly. It didn't do a thing all rest of the season, barely grew at all. I discovered something when I pulled the plant. As always, I take a good look at the roots when extracting the plant from the bucket. There were hardly any roots!

The nice looking nursery that I bought the plant from did a very dishonest thing. It merely put a robust looking cutting in a 4"x4" seedling container and put in on the shelf to sell. I bought it thinking it was a healthy plant and I paid a premium price for it. But what I got was a fresh cutting with no root system!

The lesson here is, if you buy a seedling, while at the nursery, pull it out of the seedling container and look to see if there is a decent root ball. If no root ball, don't buy it.

Next lesson. Grow your own seedling from a cutting. It takes a good month and a half to get a decent root ball in a 4"x4" container or in a 16 oz to 20 oz plastic cup with un fertilized potting mix. Do it yourself and grow the root ball in either of the aforementioned containers, set it somewhere in your kitchen for 1.5 months and keep the soil moist. Done. If you need more detail on this process or just how or where to cut the cutting from a tomato plant, let me know. BTW, I planted an Early Girl from a cutting taken from one of my other successfully growing Early Girl after I bought the aforementioned looser cutting. I took the cutting put it in a 4"x4" container for 1.5 months, then planted it in a planter box in early September this year and the plant is now 8 ft tall with 4 trusses of tomatoes. Just harvested the first tomato two days ago!

Next lesson. Making seeds for next season is a slam dunk. Much easier than I thought it would be. Take a clean 24 fluid ounce glass jar, remove the lid, put in the seeds from a fresh plump tomato while getting as much of the gel and fluid as you can into the jar with the seeds, then add an equal volume of water. Place plastic wrap tightly over the top of the jar and do a quick jab of the taught plastic wrap with a paring knife for a half inch air hole slit. Let it set on the kitchen counter for two to 4 days and it will develop a white scum. Gently add about 3 ounces of water and then scoop out or pour off the scum, add about 4 to 6 fluid oz of water to the remaining seeds and shake well, then pour off the liquid. Any seeds that float, get rid of them. Only keep the seeds that sink to the bottom. Do this rinse about four times. Drain off the water. Spread the seeds on a paper towel for about 1 minute while gently rubbing the seeds against the paper towel to help dry them. Next, spread the seeds out on a flat dinner plate to dry for two or three days. Every now and then, move the seeds (with your finger nail) every so often as they will tend to stick to the plate as they dry...do your best to always keep them un-stuck to the plate. When they are dry and freely slide on the plate, put in a paper envelope and label the envelope with cultivar name and the date. Store the seeds in a dry place. Done.

I got a million more lessons all from this season. What are your lessons? Let us know. Looking forward to reading what lessons you learned this past season.

Last edited by BajaMitch; December 20, 2016 at 09:29 AM.
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