Starting Tomatoes for 2012

This year, I started my tomatoes from seed on 1/23/2012 and 1/24/2012. I chose these dates taking into consideration that last year, I had started in March, which was simply too late. The year before, I started in December, and that was way too early.
I also chose the tomatoes very carefully, taking into consideration our cool temperature climate; this year, they are Black Krim, Momotaro, SunGold and Pineapple. No others because I find I have too many seedlings each year and not enough space. The Black Krim, a cooler climate tolerant tomato, should be perfect for our one block from the beach climate. As for the Pineapple, I think it won't do that well since it seems to prefer sunnier and warmer places so this is my challenge for the year. SunGold does well, since it is a cherry. The Momotaro does okay but I like this tomato and don't want to give up on it.
I harvested the Black Krim and Pineapple seeds directly from the tomato. The Momotaro and Sungold are hybrids and came from the Kitagawa seed company.
This year, I decided to soak the seeds in water for an hour, a new step but I don't know if it made a difference.
 
Germination rate was 100% except for the Pineapple seeds (50%).


I plant the seeds into small containers.
 As the seedlings grow, I transplant into larger containers. Since I grow the seedlings indoors in my window, I find I need to cold-acclimitize the seedlings before taking them outdoors else they do not grow well. Our outdoor overnight temps drop to 50 F, which I think is pushing the comfort boundaries. The Black Krim have been slowly acclimitized outdoors overnight over a two week period.
Of the six Black Krim seedlings, one has already been given away, one will be given away to a local group, and the rest will be planted in my garden.
This Black Krim has already been planted into the ground.
 
I follow the instructions from here for the most part.

Using CDs in the garden

The local birds have gourmet tastes, and they love my mesclun lettuce. Here's a shot of some their work in my garden. My solution was to try this old CD trick. I dangle a CD on a string so that it rotates freely in the wind, reflecting sunlight all around. Not the most aesthetically pleasing solution but it seems to work for now. I plan to eat the lettuce soon to make room for tomatoes.

Boysenberry in bloom

I'm sorry to have dropped out of sight. I needed to find a new photo host site for this blog since I had maxed out my Flickr site. I'm currently using Photobucket and we'll see how that works. I'm not sure if I like the quality of the photos. In the meantime, I will be experimenting with how Photobucket works. If any of you have suggestions, please leave them in the comments. Thanks!

For next year: Tomato post-mortem

Going back over this season, some thoughts for next year:

This year, I started planting seeds in March, a bit late I thought then, but I think it all worked out. I have planted as early as December. While it is nice to get an early start, we can get weather too cold for the tropical-ish tomatoes. Another consideration re: seed planting: I would like tomato ripening spread out over the summer but, alas, this is the reality of growing crops, even as small-scale as my adventure. As it was, this year, I had a ripening glut in the first three weeks of August.  I think it would be good to plant a few in January, a few in February, a few in March and no later.

What would I plant next year? I will stick with cold climate tolerant tomatoes but with a few exceptions. Definitely the Sungold will be back, even though it is a hybrid, not an heirloom. What an overachiever! I would also make sure it had more room and more support since it grew like the monster plant in Little Shop of Horrors. I would like to have two, maybe one planted earlier, one planted later.

Definitely more Black Krim. This is a gorgeous cold climate tolerant heirloom producing the type of tomatoes that look beautiful in sandwiches. I only had one plant; next year, I would love to have at least two, perhaps planted a month apart.

I still like Momotaro, even though it is a hybrid. Two would be nice.

I had six Japanese Black Trifele, all ripening at the same time. Next year, I would prefer fewer, perhaps two. The Japanese Black Trifele do well here, one block from the beach, very prolific with smallish pear-shaped tomatoes.

I still have dreams of growing Brandywine's Sudduth, definitely not a cold climate tolerant tomato. It did well one year but never again. Growing Brandywine's Sudduth is my little attempt at being Don Quixote. I still like to dream.

I have a small plot so eight to nine tomato plants is about it, I think. I had twelve this year, a bit too much.

How the Mortgage Lifter Tomato came to be

I haven't grown any Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes but I have heard of it over the years. Here's a transcript on how it came to be.  Apparently the true name is Radiator Charlie's Mortage Lifter Tomatoes. Radiator Charlie was a fellow who invented his own way of creating new strains of tomatoes; he did this without the benefit of a formal education.

BYLES: What I did I took ten plants and put them in a circle and put one in the center.

YOUNG: McCormack has studied this part of the tape carefully and says Byles invented an unorthodox but elegant system.

McCORMACK: Well, he started with four varieties of tomatoes and he placed a tomato called German Johnson in the center of a ring of 10 tomatoes. All these tomatoes were the largest seeds he could find in the country at the time. So, he would go around to the other tomatoes, collect pollen in the baby’s ear syringe, then squirt it on the flowers of the German Johnson. Then he would save seed. After seven years, he felt he had a stable tomato with all qualities he was looking for, and once he was satisfied with that he never worked with any other tomato plants, did any other plant breeding. But he really ran with it after he developed it.

YOUNG: Ran all the way to the bank. Turns out Radiator Charlie Byles had quite a knack for marketing, and sold tomato seedlings for a buck apiece—a lot of money for a little plant in those days. He sold enough of them to pay off the mortgage on his house.

BYLES: I didn’t pay but six thousand dollars for my home, and paid most of it off with tomato plants.

I don't know if they would work in our location, one block from the beach. But I found the story fascinating.