Tomato Experiment Update

Remember me?

Yeah, not looking so good. Though there were roots, the tomatoes and long branch took too much energy to maintain. It died, no great surprise.

Experiment number two was also a bust. The rooted spikes with a little leaf on it died also. That was a surprise. A wise goat appraiser once told me that I needed to do things myself to gain a true understanding. He is right. If the experiment is not costly, experiencing it for yourself does indeed bring a level of understanding one can not gain through words alone.

With a little research under my belt I tried propagating tomatoes or cloning which is another word for it. I took a short stem off one of the tomato plants and placed it in very wet soil. Putting it in soil instead of just straight water is suppose to work better. Also I gently scraped the bottom sides of the stem as instructed. They said it wasn't imperative but helpful. The top leaves look a bit pale but you can see some new dark green ones appearing. Roots begin to sprout at a week old I've learned. The sprouting of roots is due to the fact that the chemical auxim is present in tomatoes and in some other plants. Cut flowers die because the stems do not have this chemical.

This cloning method is something that allows you to keep your tomatoes, peppers, and some other garden plants going on forever from just one parent plant. 

I am disappointed that my tomato seeds have not sprouted yet. I think I might need to put a heating pad under them. Our house can be pretty cool. In this first stage of experimenting I have indeed learned that in the winter; propagating or cloning, which ever word you like, is the way to go.  My tomato plants look pretty rough right now since I do not have them under grow lights. That is one of the experiments is to see if they can make it on the naturally available light. Winter solstice is past so things should be looking up for them. My herbs last year looked pretty rough during December and January but really kicked into gear after that.

Stay tuned I have another indoor plant experiment in the works and several more I'm going to start next week.

Hot Water Works LIke a Dream on Trees

The kiddos showing off the blankets their great-grandmother made them.

Not done with making Christmas presents and sending cards but at least we are back to getting some sleep. You will often find us crawling in bed with the kids at 8 or 8:30. This fall has left us in bad need of sleep. Kind of like Christmas Eve when we were awoke at 1:20 with a child wetting the bed. The same child that called us every day she was not here to inform us of how many days until Christmas.

Our oldest daughter who was sleeping with this grandchild then could not go back to sleep. I stayed up with her for a while after shooing all the other grandkids back to bed along with their mother. Then too tired to keep my eyes open, I went back to bed. At 4:30 a.m. my husband had to get up to go to work and it awoke one of the grandkids whom I then went off to sleep with, musical beds is a favorite past time around here. Then when most of the kids had awoken at 6:00, we began the 11/2 hours of opening gifts. We like to do it slowly. But no breakfast before presents because that is torture for kids and I am against such torture.

So now I am putting away Christmas decorations only because I have to get ready for school starting up next week and three birthdays parties. I rather regret de-decorating, as the kids call it. I am really enjoying the tree. It is so.... soft and green. I tried one of those tricks on Facebook and low and behold it WORKS! I buy my fresh trees the very beginning of December so I can get it right away in water instead of letting it continue to dry out. A fresh tree because they are a renewable resource and clean the air. Fresh because I can't stand the thought of putting a plastic tree in the landfill to take 50,000 years to decompose. I've imagined myself trying to explaining that to my Heavenly Father when we have the conversation about how I took care of HIS earth. Plus fresh helps support a farmer each year. I know, my brain goes where few men have often gone.

Love the backdrop for the tree!

 This year I figured I would try the Facebook trick because it just made sense beyond the lack of instructions.The tip was to boil water and then cool it for five minutes but the details were not in it. My Autism raised its ugly head as I wondered if they meant on a gas stove or an electric stove which an electric stove burner holds heat long after a gas does. They did not say take the pan off the burner so did they mean that? How hot your house is would make a difference also. Ours is rather cool. I know, I should have been a research specialist. In the land of confusion for lack of information, a land I know well, I just forged my own path because I could not bring myself to burn my poor tree. You can probably see now why we Autistic people shut down, overload of emotions and confusion because we process wa....y too much information. Keep it simple is not part of our network.

Changing my decorations to match the backdrop. Tree needs a twig star for next year.

So I changed the rules and went with hot tap water. The concept is that hot water opens the pores in the bottom of the tree. That is after you cut the bottom off of before putting in the water so you get past the sealed pores from dehydration. They did not mention that part in the instructions either. Cold water solidifies the sap and stops the tree from drawing up the water. That makes sense.

Nearly four weeks later and you can grip a branch on my tree and run your hand down the needles and rarely does one fall off. It is AWESOME!!! The tree sucked up water the whole time instead of the usual sucks up water for a couple weeks and then quits. I am definitely doing this with all my plants. Maybe not quite as hot a water but I am going to use warm water with my indoor garden I am starting. Surely roots like to be bathes in warm water instead of cold also.



Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Season!

Saving Seed and Tomatoes in the House

I canned pumpkins this past week and now can put a mental check on that project. I'm drying a few seeds to try sprouting next year. As a back up plan I will make sure I also sprout some from someone who knows what they are doing, a seed company. Mine are from the largest pumpkins. The ones that developed before the Buttercup squash came on. Sugar Pie pumpkins and Buttercup squash get all kissy kissy I've heard though I have yet to see it. The books say they are from the same family and will cross.

That means I have to figure out a rotating plan to grow certain kinds of pumpkins and squash in rotating years so I can save seed or force abstinence upon a few. You know where you tie up the blossoms just before they make their maiden flight, I mean open up. Then plan an arrange marriage and pollinate them with the chosen groom whom is also tied up until the wedding. Then tie them both up again so they can't change their minds. I have been going to be a wedding planner for several summers now but it just has not gotten done. That is why I want to try the rotation plan. Maybe I just am not cut out to be a wedding planner. Desire keeps getting booted out the door when other people's problems push their way in. And I must admit, I have trepid thoughts though why killing off a few blossoms with my bumbling ways would be such a crime is beyond me.   

Saving seed is one of my top priorities this year so life had better get out of the way. I am right now attempting to sprout seeds I saved from my miniature tomato plants I grew last spring in the sun room. The tomatoes that grew to over 20 inches tall instead of staying the miniature 12 inches the catalogue promised me they would be. The one that the top was accidentally broke off did indeed make around 12 inches tall so that is the plan for these new ones, whack off the tops if they even hint of aspiring to greater heights because there is just too much plant for the number of tomatoes formed. Whacked looked so cute and had more tomatoes per plant formation than the others so I quickly quit feeling sorry for it.  

Most of the house tomato plants have been thrown out into the field but I have the three Goldilocks candidates remaining: too tall,  down to a stub, and the one plant which has one of its limbs just hanging on by a few plant strands. Yes the spring tomato plants were sorely neglected over the summer.

I had quit watering Stemmy, yes I gave him a name, (Or is it a her since there are babies but then there has to be a he too doesn't there?). Oh well, IT was going to be thrown out and then IT grew leaves on the stems. My brain whirled and Stemmy got a second chance at life yesterday. If IT does not blow it and creates a new productive plant from the stubby beginnings, then that will be a new discovery for me. To start tomato plants anew after cutting them down to just stubs makes sense that this would be a much faster way to grow a new plant. From seed takes forever to just grow a good root base. Stemmy has the root base established and should therefore take off more quickly. Will he or is it she grow into fruition?  Time will tell.

The plant with one of its branches that was just hanging on by a few plant strands just kept hanging in there, literally.  Weeks went by and still it hung on with no sign of wilting leaves except when I forgot to water it. Probably stayed alive I figure because I've learned that plants go into kind of a hibernation this time of year. Okay the winter gardening books did not use the word hibernation but plant's growth is almost stopped waiting for winter solstice to pass when they are suppose to take off once more. I noticed this with herbs growing in the window last year. Not enough hours of light. I severed the hanging limb and put it into a quart jar of water. Will it grow roots and take off. That is the question. Meanwhile the mother plant just got a trim.  

Tomato number three is too tall and when I replanted it putting in two paint sticks tied together for a stake I did an exaggerated S curve with it to keep it in line, pun intended. It now fits more upright on the shelf it must reside on rather than hanging over the edge.

The other phase of this experiment is to see how the plants do without a grow light. I want to see how economical I can go. They have not had a light since last spring.

My next experiment series began yesterday also. I have just planted a few seeds from the tomatoes of a previous harvest of these miniature tomatoes. The tomatoes that were wrinkled and old. You see I learned my lesson.

Late summer when I figured I had better collect seeds or call seed saving a wash for the year I had no or few old guys before the garden was saying goodbye--- hello cold. Then I discovered you want the really old wrinkled crowd to save seed from. U....t, Oh! Vegetables in their prime do not have good seeds as a rule. They are too small. See we old guys are the hope of the future. That meant only a few candidates made it to the learn how to process the seed stage. I did do some tomato and potato seed and learned more about fermentation to save seed. I am of course saving pumpkin seeds and one kind of pepper that put on the earliest so it had not crossed just like the pumpkin deal.

Not much but a start but a start never the less. "In all labor there is profit.", the saying goes and I learned that cucumbers have to be large, old, yellow, nearly dead guys from which viable seeds come from. I knew that great eating cucumbers have small seeds but it never really registered just how large, old, and nearly rotted they had to be before the seeds get large. Mine I tried to save from was on the path but had not arrived. I learned more about dried beans and  kept seed from the beans we eat green. One batch I dried on low in the dehydrator and one I let dry naturally. We shall see if the ones dried in the dehydrator will sprout. It was because of a matter of space that the experiment stemmed from. I learned that there can definitely be too many chickens in the garden. Maybe not my best gardening year but not a waste of time. My knowledge has increased and with learning do's and don'ts comes success.

I have several times grown, or shall we say attempted to grow lettuce in the house. This past spring I grew a miniature type of Tom Thumb and it was a great success. I was able to cut several times before the quality waned. I have another planting started yesterday. This time I put in a few other kinds also. Part of doing it right is getting the right kind of seeds for the situation. It just happens that this particular seed is good for winter gardening, something I will talk about more later. Now I am in the pondering and research stage.

Potatoes and Other Things

This has nothing to do with today's subject but let me introduce you to our newest member of the menagerie, his name is Duke. With Kirk setting traps, our older cat spending long hours hunting, they just could not keep up with the influx of mice so Duke entered the scene. He is already catching mice at his tiny size. One day I watched him kill a mouse in the morning and another in the evening. Don't know how many he scores a day but it is impressive for so small a kitten. My advice would be if you want a cat to cuddle, go to the shelter; if you want a mouser, find a barn cat's kittens. They have the instincts to hunt or their parents would not have survived. Our cats of course have a back up of cat food to keep them healthy but I would not choose a shelter kitten for a barn cat job. They have the wrong resume. Duke is beyond spoiled as the grandkids seldom let his feet touch the ground. Good thing the three oldest are in school most of the day and there is just our three-year-old grand daughter left at home or the kitten would not get any work done.

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Gardens are coming to a close here up north and ours for the most part came to a halt back on August 22 when we had a killing frost. Yes, even a bit early for here. I thought with all that I had learned the past 33 years gardening in our old home, same altitude, same growing zone, that the learning curve would mainly just be the change in soil. Boy was I ever wrong. Things that I could grow before like Brussel Sprouts just don't stand a chance up here. I even tried two different varieties. My first thought was they are a cool weather crop and hence should do pretty well up here? I've tried for two summers and they don't even come close to developing. Corn is another huge struggle and I have not gotten a crop in two years. I've not given up on it. I do love my corn and I have a few ideas to try. What I have learned from observation of the last couple summers is that we have far cooler nights and that halts growing until the temp raises in the morning. That means not only short season but cool season crops, really cool weather crops have to be found.

My sister has a kind of bean I am unfamiliar with that did well for her and she lives at a even higher altitude but I think their nights are warmer. She promised to send me some and said if I like them she will send more for seed. Like the taste I'm thinking is less important than if they will grow in a survival situation.  My dried bean experiments that has been going on for 6 years is taking a very different turn but I'll talk more about that later.

Short season, really cool weather crops will take priority and cold frames, tires, and row covers are going to have to be a big part of our plan. The greenhouse frame will have to go up next summer and since the tomatoes and peppers did well up against the house on the south side, we will work on a frame that can cover that area also. Anything that tempers the cool weather and holds warmth is going to be a biggy.
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Since it is the time many will be digging their potatoes I thought I would update you on my experiments. I would not have my tators so early in September with the unusually warm weather we have had after the killing frost but when I dug up a few hills for eating, I discovered some rotten were rotten. I was shocked! My potatoes don't even rot when I hit them with a shovel while digging. They just scab over and remain firm. I'm blaming the ghostly pale, BIG fat worm lurking amongst my crop. Anyone know who it might be? He looked like a pretty shady character and I didn't like the look of him. The bites out of the potatoes were pretty good sized and I wasn't about to take a chance loosing the whole crop, so I dug.

At the encouragement of my sister, the same one with the beans, I tried Pontiacs since I LOVE red potatoes but they failed. I put Dakota's back in and they gave me a puny crop. They did better last year but not a terribly impressive show. The King George potatoes came through as they have through disease, drought, hail, and every other adversity. They even produced potatoes on plants that did not blossom last year. I never knew that was even possible. I get some pretty big ones too with quite a few per hill. More than anything else I've grown.

                                               Photo is of a King George Potato
I was thinking when I stabbed a few Dakotas, "Now these are going to turn to mush and I will have to put them in the mulch pile. There are too many of them to have for supper." Hmmm......" What shall I do to not waste them?" Here is where the brain fart enters in. "What if I took all the damaged potatoes and made potato flour from them?"  You know this brain never rests.  I hurried, washed them, boil the potato pieces, cut them up into smaller pieces, dried them in the dehydrator, put them through the blender to chop them up even littler, and I will put them through the wheat grinder when I get it out to grind wheat. The guilt of wasting food is gone and I am feeling pretty smart. Something I savor whenever possible. Especially since I have been doing some carpentry work lately and that always leaves me feeling and looking pretty dumb.

I have decided to halt my potato diversity plan for now and move on to my next experiment in the form of figuring out how to work with true potato seeds. Something the plants don't produce every year. Some of you don't even know what that is probably. I sure wondered what the clusters of green balls that produce where the blossoms were? That is them, true potato seeds. Potatoes that I had saved, put in the ground, saved some from that crop, and put in again produced the potato seeds. Not sure if that was what it takes or if the weather was just right but I plan to find out by keeping records. I've been wanting true potato seeds to begin my next experiments because of the  "What ifs?", which send surges of panic through me. "What if we were in a survival situation and my potato cropped failed? What would we put in the ground the next year to get a crop?" It isn't like you can keep tiny potatoes in storage for years. There were thousands who starved to death in Ireland from a potato famine. It could happen again as history repeats itself.

Don't know how long true potato seeds last but surely longer than small potatoes. I can see I have more research to do but now I can begin to learn for I have some seeds to grow into plants and begin the next phase of experimentation.

It is my understanding from research that it is the true potato seeds which harbor the genetic crosses that become new strains of potatoes. I'm not at the moment interested in producing a new kind of potato as I only have one kind that is doing well but I am hoping that the seeds remain viable for a few years giving me a back up safety system. First I have to plant them and see how long it takes to produce plants large enough to put in the garden. Well actually first I had to try to remove the seeds from the green firm balls. I'm hoping unlike peppers and cucumbers that there isn't a specific age development at which you have to do this. I just picked a few off of plants that were dying and a few more off the ground where they had fallen.

I followed directions that recommended you put the balls in the blender with water and chop them up. This left me with a mess, too much pulp per tiny seeds. Wondering how to separate this mess I put them in canning jars and waited to see which seeds floated, they are the bad ones, and which seeds fell to the bottom. The seeds just didn't want to fall because they were held up by all the pulp. I shook the jars now and then and tried skimming off pulp from the top. There were just too many seeds that ended up coming with each scoop and I felt wasteful. There has got to be a better way. If you know of it please share. I dried the seeds and pulp that I wasn't able to separate both ended up on parchment paper together and I figured the pulp will just rot away when I plant the seeds. That is plant them next spring under grow lights. Answers just don't come quickly when it involves gardening. It takes years to sometimes to find the answers and gain the skills needed.  It is one area I would gladly pay to be an apprentice to speed up the process. There are just so few that have the knowledge in my area
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 Have any of you tried working with true potato seeds?