Big seedlings, ready for the big pots

My approach this year was rather simple.  I used soil-less potting mix for plants with a little fertilizer mixed in. My choice was Jobe's Organic Tomato Fertilizer.  It seemed to have just about everything I needed.  I've read up on all of these techniques people use, with so many different types of fertilizers and additional minerals to include Azomite powder.  Is it overkill?  Maybe... Or perhaps it makes sense if growing a lot of tomato plants.  With my intention to have just 5 altogether, I couldn't see the merit of spending all that money on what might only give me a 10~20% boost in productivity.  I did learn quite a bit from last year.  NO SOIL.  Only potting mix.  And, I started with Jobe's fertilizer right off the bat.

My seedlings took off.  Lots of good weather and also good timing on bringing my plants inside before torrential rainfalls or very chilly nights helped them out quite a bit.

A Variety of Tomato Plants

Russian Oxheart

Sara's Galapagos

And just about a week later, you could see a measurable improvement:

Black Krim in mini Sub Irrigated Pot

Sara's Galapagos

I'm hopeful this will be a really good growing season.  I'm definitely looking forward to the variety of heirlooms I chose this year.

How to tell seedling varieties apart

For the most part, most heirloom tomato leaves look very much alike.  So, when starting out as seedlings it's very difficult to tell them apart. However, there are a few small visual cues that can help.  First is the leaf shape.  They are a kind of "potato leaf" design.  I found that the Black Krim and Black Plum are nearly identical.  The Russian Oxheart is also of the same design, but the leaves are a little more rounded and with more fringing, or spikes.  The Black Krim tends to have larger and slightly irregular shapes.  The Sara's Galapagos were a cinch to tell apart.  This plant looks astonishingly different from the others.

Mature seedlings, ready for transplant

I'm already about 3 weeks behind where I was last year, when I started out with store-bought seedlings.  My failure was being hesitant to start the seedlings too early, where temperatures were still quite cool.  A bit late on dealing with it, I did manage to get a heating pad that helped a lot.  It will come in handy next year and I hope to get germination underway in March next year.

Anyway...

A few weeks ago, I transplanted my seedlings into pots.  I was thrilled with so much germination going on.  I honestly didn't expect more than 50% of the seeds I planted to sprout.  About 75% of the Russian Oxheart sprouted and about 90% of the Black Krim got going.  The Sara's Galapagos took 2 weeks longer to show any signs.  I'll have to remember that next year, to start them earlier.

Thus, with so many seedlings and so little room to grow them, I was saddened to think that so many of these would be tossed out.  THANKFULLY, a friend of mine told me about a lady who was remiss on being late with tomato seed germination.  I gave my left over seedlings to him, to transfer to that lady.  I heard later she was thrilled.  I hope she has a great growing season!  Here's part of the carnage:

This was what I had left over after selecting the tallest and heartiest looking seedlings for my growing.  I honestly didn't expect them to work out so well.  I was lamenting that I didn't buy a commercial seed starter kit, but next year I'm going to go this route again.  Might as well put this Styrofoam to good use!

I was somewhat smart and marked up the existing labels with initials, to help identify the varieties.  BK - Black Krim, RO - Russian Oxheart, BP - Black Plum, and SG - Sara's Galapagos.  Yet, I was also somewhat negligent and managed to leave off a label on the little green pot.  I'm pretty sure it's a Black Krim, but there's a chance it may be a Russian Oxheart.  However, there might be a way to tell... which I'll point out in my next post.

Awakenings

I haven't posted anything since October of last year... took a break over the winter on growing anything.

I got a little behind in my plans for planting... Not only did I start a bit late on germination of the seeds, but I was stalled on getting some new pots to plant them in once ready.  Anyway, based on how well into the autumn my plants were able to grow last year, I'm not terribly concerned about it.  Next year will be different, though.

What caused me to start a bit late on the seedlings was that I hadn't make any provisions to get them started in cool weather. My "grow area" is near a window on the south side of my apartment.  At night it gets a bit chilly over there during the winter and early spring.  So, I ended up buying a heating mat.  This made a huge difference and I was able to help my seedlings thrive in the early stages.  I just wish I'd bought that mat a few weeks earlier.  The mat is like 20" x 9" and cost about $20 shipped.  Well worth it.

Also, I didn't get myself some seedling starter trays.  As you can see below, I used styrofoam egg containers.  Well, quite frankly these worked out terrific.  I used the lid as a water reservoir, and with holes punched into all of the egg slots there was sufficient drainage and moisturizing of the medium.  The seedling medium I used was actually intended for starting basil seeds.  I'd bought a few of these on steep discount last year.  It's like a solid puck that you pour water over, which then quickly swells into 10 times the volume.  The tomato seeds seemed to do just fine with those.

Looks like I may have some decent Black Krim and Russian Oxheart tomato plants to play with this season.

Black Krim seedlings

I also started out some Sara's Galapagos tomato seeds.  I wish I'd remembered to read up on them before I started.  The germination rate is very low on these.  I got about 75+ seeds in my pack, and only 6 actually germinated!  Also, they take at least 2 weeks longer to sprout than your typical heirloom seeds.  Here you can see just how small those cotyledon leaves are in comparison to the other varieties.  I honestly didn't think these would make it:

Sara's Galapagos seedlings

The Best of the Harvest

It has been just about a week since my last posting. Since then I have harvested the largest tomatoes of the growing season that my plants created. The two largest turned out to be 10oz and 11oz. They have a weird "navel" like formation on the bottom, as each of them are really two tomatoes kind of conjoined. The remaining ones are quite a bit smaller, coming in at 7oz or less. A couple turned out to be about as small as the typical mini-tomato variety.

I didn't take many photos in the latter half of the tomato season, as I'd been a bit exasperated at not having gotten nearly as many tomatoes as I'd anticipated. The only thing really keeping me thankful was hearing about the horror stories of other tomato growers, who lost entire crops to blight, poaching by animals, or just miserable weather conditions.  But what really has me hooked is... THE FLAVOR. I'm a fan of Kumato tomatoes and have been buying them instead of the bland beefsteaks you typically find at the supermarket. Well, these Black Krim tomatoes make the Kumato taste like a bland hothouse tomato!  Amazing... I've been spoiled.  ;-)

Ultimately, I do have a lot to be thankful for. First of all, I learned a ton about tomato growing. If I'd run into my blog as it is now before I got started, assuming it was someone else who posted all this last growing season, I'd have skipped nearly all of the mistakes that first time tomato growers tend to make. And I'd probably have harvested about 60% more tomatoes as a result. So... if my blog gives you that boost, please post and let me know--it would feel good hearing that I've made a positive difference for some other folks.

The next big thing to wonder about is what to grow next year. I already have a big bunch of seeds I harvested from my Black Krim tomatoes, so I will grow this variety again. I also bought some seeds from Gary Pilarchik, namely Russian Orange Oxheart 117 and Sara's Galapagos. He threw in Black Plum as a gift, but I'll probably get them going as seedlings and then give them to my neighbors for growing in their garden. I'd really like to try a couple more varieties, but if I'm still living where I am I won't have a lot of room to grow more than just 4 varieties. TomatoVille has some topics about what have been people's favorites ["What are your favorites this year", "2013 tomato variety report -- winners", and "What are you growing next year, no matter what"]. Those are packed with responses, so you need a lot of time to peruse. I'm very tempted to grow about 8 more varieties, but... I'll have to whittle it down to just 2 more.

Black Krim future harvest

Well, it's a world of difference between the two plants. While the parent plant is towering over 6' (would be closer to 7' if I hadn't encouraged the main stem to bend over), the "offspring" plant is just barely 4' tall. But height doesn't matter when it comes to production in this case, as the smaller plant has been gestating some really good sized fruits. Obviously the potting medium must have made a difference, in addition to the warmer months of mid summer and a more regular fertilizing effort. But I'm hopeful that the enhanced center wick basket I installed when I modified the container has helped too.

My hands take XL sized gloves, so this is no small tomato!

This is probably the most perfectly shaped Black Krim tomato I've seen yet

Unfortunately the massive downpour we had the other night induced some cracking in the fruits, but thankfully they're rather thin and healed quickly. That's one of the downsides of home grown heirloom tomatoes, is that you're going to get all kinds of visual flaws like peculiar shapes and scars from cracking and other incidental damage. But the taste... that's what it is all about.

I counted 12 tomatoes ranging from tennis ball to "full hand" size. There are also a number of smaller tomatoes from stalled blossoms that are trying to catch up, but I'm not very hopeful they'll make it to a decent size.  All in all, this plant is not doing bad considering how late in the game it was started. I just wish I'd had a bigger crop, not only for myself to enjoy but to share with friends and family!

Put more chives in your life

Earlier I made a posting about growing chives, sharing my enthusiasm for this herb and making the realization on how easy it is to cultivate it. After making my huge harvest that would end up in the freezer for long term use, I had read up more on the science of growing chives and learned a few things.

First and foremost, chives reproduce in two ways:

1. Bulb division
2. Seed propagation

It takes the germination of new seedlings to reach maturity in 2 years, but bulb division happens over the course of a growing season when there's enough room in the soil. So, breaking up a chive plant every few years is a trouble-free and easy way to manage your chive crop. With seeds, you have to do the whole germination thing and separately nurture the seedlings for about 2 years, which can be a bit of a bother. And is it really necessary?  I left my pot of chives going for several years before stepping up to divide the bulb clusters. Frankly, with the single pot I was getting enough chives to keep me from having to buy them in the store. But now that I've learned more good things about chives, I'm going to be eating them more often and will need to have a larger crop!

I'd read that you should chop off all of the chive leaves at about 2-4" above the base prior to breaking up the bulbs. I decided to just thin it out a bit but leave a lot of longer leaves in place. It was just a guess, but I figured the long chive leaves will give a good boost of photosynthesis, or sacrifice themselves to transfer nutrients back into the bulbs.

When the soil becomes crowded with chive bulbs, the plant will resist dividing and just keep growing roots. Extracting my chive plant from the pot, I found a large group of small bulbs with a literal "mop" of roots all swirled around at the bottom. This particular pot has a peculiar drainage mechanism--rather than holes all along the bottom, there's a small 2" shaft in the center with a hole in the top of it. This allows about a 2" layer of water to gather at the bottom, where any more than that will drain out of the center shaft. I guess this works well for the chives, because the roots were not rotten in any way.

SO,,,

The bulbs were numerous and rather small, but I was able to carefully break them up while retaining a good portion of the roots. Because they were all so terribly intertwined, quite a number of roots were severed in order to separate the bulbs. This had me worried, as I expected the significant cut in the ability to uptake water might kill off a number of the bulbs. Nevertheless, the deed was done and the bulbs were extracted.

I had one large grouping of about a dozen bulbs, and a few smaller groupings that managed to separate from the main cluster. I put the largest cluster back into the original pot with lots of fresh medium and fertilizer. I had a few single chive bulb remnants left behind and decided to poke a few holes in the soil to see if they might manage to survive the separation. Next, I transplanted the smaller clusters into two other pots--one small, one medium. 

The next day, the long chive leaves were all rather droopy. This was not looking good. They weren't as bad as cut chives left on a table, but were definitely suffering from water loss. I made sure to keep the soil most. I went away for the weekend and then came back, to find the chives were springing back with vigor. All three pots were showing leaf resilience, a notable number of them standing up among the others that were still limp. This was very encouraging and a real testament to the heartiness of chives. What roots they had to work with must have sprung forth to help sop up moisture for the leaves.

Smallest of the chive transplants

Medium sized chive potting, with about 5-6 bulbs

The BIG one -- the primary cluster plus a few single and small groupings

The large pot has quite a bit less dense of a chive population than it was originally. The bulb cluster was pushed up against the wall of the pot, with the leaves overhanging the other half. I had put some chive seeds in the "vacant lot" of the other side last spring as an experiment, but had to tie back the leaves of the main cluster in order for the sun to reach them (you can see the taped plastic on the side). The little chive sprouts were struggling in that pot, not only because of the light challenges, but also due to competition with the roots of the other plant. I transplanted them into their own pot and hopefully they'll have better luck with vigorous growth:

Chive seedlings

The "bulbs" of these stalks are barely visible. From what I've read, it'll take a good 18-24 months before they reach a mature size. This was my first time trying to grow any seeds without germination pods. I just lightly buried them in the large chive pot and watered periodically, until about a month later when they started to push through the soil. It'll be interesting to see how they do over the winter. I won't let them rest (like the main plant) and will feed them fertilizer to stimulate growth to help shorten the time to maturity. As I said earlier this isn't the convenient way to increase your chive population (better to split up bulbs to give them more room for further dividing), but I want to experience it for myself.

So I'm going to have a lot of chives, that's for certain. I've read up on this herb and it's one of the most nutritious. It is very low in cholesterol and sodium, and also a good source of Thiamin, Niacin, Phosphorus and Zinc, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Potassium, Copper and Manganese. The percentage Daily Value of Vitamin A and C are 3% for 3 grams, which is a terrific ratio. They also have good antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties.

Relatively speaking, chives are a weaker kind of garlic in terms of health benefits. Of course, with flavoring you'll probably not think to put more than a teaspoonful of them but given their potential I'd say it's time to do a tablespoonful or more. So... try to smother your food with those chives!