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!

The dreaded BER continued

[Note: Delayed posting, content from 4-7 days ago]

As I noted earlier, my primary Black Krim tomato plant began to suffer from BER late in the season. From what I've read, BER typically strikes plants in their early growth stages but this by no means absolves them of sensitivity to it later on.

I ended up removing 8 tomatoes that were suffering from BER and later on discovered another 4 that had succumbed to it. At this point, there's about a handful of tomatoes left growing on this enormous plant. It would seem almost a waste to keep it going... all of that watering and nutrients needed for a huge plant that has barely a half-dozen fruits on it. And at this point, it's too late in the season to be concerned with pollinating any flowers. Anyway, after a long examination, I found a few more small tomatoes and I've determined that there's enough of a healthy crop to keep it going.

And that leaves me with the small sucker that I'd rooted and kept "dwarfed" for about a month. I'd transplanted it in a larger pot when I noticed 3 tomatoes having set. I figured why not get a couple of extra fruits for just a bit of watering and fertilizer?  Wrong. All of the sudden I saw it--the dreaded BER. Bottoms of the tomatoes turning brown. All three of them. "Gosh darn it!" (instead of a string of curses).  It's just too late in the season now, even though I could have continued nursing it indoors. I raised it from the pot, put it in a plastic bag, and tossed it outside. Amazingly enough, one week later and the plant is still alive and the BER inflicted tomatoes have remained unchanged. It's sad, but there's just not enough time for it to grow new fruit...

There is one important consideration with tomatoes, and that is the genetic strain of a given variety. Apparently they are not all created equal. Some strains will be a little less resistant to disease and other maladies, while others will be more hearty/robust. I've read up quite a bit on postings from seasoned tomato growers and it's not a shallow subject by any means. The operative word is "stabilization".  Some strains floating about in the wild are simply not as stable as others. And you can see this exhibited in various forms. One such characteristic is the appearance of peculiar looking fruits (what some call "cat faced") among the normal ones. This is the result of environmental issues at pollination time (such as too much nitrogen, low temperatures, etc). A heartier strain will require more taxing conditions to cause the cat-facing of tomatoes, while others will almost always churn out a few of these oddities during the growing season.

But moving onward, I'm really looking forward to the coming weeks as I finally get to harvest some of the largest Black Krim fruits I've seen yet.  The first rooted sucker I've had going has definitely outpaced the parent plant not only on the volume of tomatoes but their size as well. This speaks volumes about how important soil and fertilizer is and experiencing it first hand has really "driven it home".

This photo was taken about 10 days ago as of this posting and their even larger. I will definitely weigh them once off the vine, to see just how hefty they actually are (maybe 12 oz?). The first sign of blushing appeared on one of the smaller tomatoes, so these should be catching up in the next week or two.

Potting Medium Makes All The Difference

As I noted earlier in my blog, I'd started a Black Krim plant from a rooted sucker, but this time applied some of the things I'd learned in the course of growing the parent plant.  The difference is rather amazing.  Here are some of the things I've noticed:

• The plant has grown faster, and I think only part of this was due to the warmer weather conditions of mid summer.
• The leaves are larger and only the bottom most branches have shown curling, whereas on the parent plant a majority of the leaves have curled. Side by side, it's clear that the second plant looks healthier.
• Fruit production not only happened earlier but at a faster pace.
• BER struck the parent plant (I've lost 8 tomatoes to it), but not the transplant.

Black Krim Parent 6' Tall -- curled leaves galore

Black Krim Parent -- common leaf detail

Given the state of the plant... and the continuing appearance of BER, I'm a week or so away from aborting it altogether because of this:

Black Krim Transplant -- large and lush healthy leaves

Clearly there's a huge difference between the plants. The potting mix makes for a much healthier environment than the fertilized top soil.  In retrospect, I saved about $8 by going with the top soil, which was a savings that can't even begin to match the effort spent in dealing with plant issues and an anemic production for most of the early season.

By the way, I started a little experiment...

After I successfully rooting the sucker (mentioned earlier) and got it growing into a productive plant, I decided that 3 large SWC containers was enough. I wasn't going to add any more to the inventory for this growing season. However, I did have one sucker that had sort of half-rooted and I figured I'd see how long I could delay its growth in a traditional small pot. I wasn't watering it diligently, but it kept on growing at a snail's pace. It was starting to outgrow the container, but I kept it in the pot to see if growth would be noticeably stunted. Water uptake was increasing and the plant started to flower. But I never expected any of of the flowers to pollinate. I didn't help it along in any way.

Well, I suddenly spotted a swelling on one flower and couldn't believe it--a tomato was growing. Not only that, but another two smaller ones were starting as well on the same truss. There's no way this plant would be able to grow any decent tomatoes being kept in that cramped pot. I had a decision to make. Either I abort the plant or I let it grow. I chose the latter. I got out another standard plastic pot about double the size, filled it with potting mix and fertilizer, then transplanted it. It reacted well and sprouted a sucker, that I had to pluck. I don't want this plant to have more than one production stem. It's going to be an experiment, where I'll be bringing it indoors as the fruit it is bearing nears the ripening stage. I honestly don't expect to get more than 5 or fewer tomatoes from it. But it'll be interesting to see how long I can grow it after the season finishes out. Once one of the other plants dies off, I might transplant this one into the larger container if it is demonstrating to be an able producer (of course I'd have to hand pollinate all of the flowers). I'm quite tempted to abort the parent plant and give it a shot in a much bigger pot (no rhyme intended--wink).

EDIT: [Unfortunately, those promising tomatoes shown above ended up contracting BER. I'm guessing that the suppressed conditions I'd put the plant under having kept it in such a small container left it ill prepared to bearing fruit. I'd watered it sufficiently and fertilized as well, but this did nothing to stave off the affliction.]

As it stands right now, I've been actively pruning my other plants. Aside from sucker plucking, I'm also nipping off the tops and trimming flowers, as there simply isn't enough time to start new tomato growth that will mature enough by the end of autumn. Plus, I don't want to be struggling with the plants as late October/early November rolls around, assuming they don't start dying off.