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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 11, 2010 15:25:21 GMT -5
I always let the occasional tomato volunteer finish its life cycle not as a means of encouraging disease but more because I'm the curious type. What I've found is that more often than not, they produce tomatoes around the same time as those that I have starated inside. Once, it was the earliest, though I suspect that was from some extremely short season, tasteless grocery store stock that survived the compost as it was very reminiscent of one. Anyhow, I know of people who let their currant tomatoes volunteer amoungst others. Are there any tomatoes you let volunteer? Any that you would be willing to start in the ground? I'm not talking for earliest production of course but just 'cause like I said, I'm the curious type. At the moment, I try to keep my indoor tomato starts outside as early and as long as possible in little greenhouses etc... How about putting tomato seeds in the ground under a cloche about a month before last frost? You might lose some but you also might not and how hard was it to stick a few seeds on a bare patch of dirt then transplant the babies? Thoughts?
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Post by bluelacedredhead on Apr 11, 2010 17:22:51 GMT -5
Telsing, My Grandmother lived in a rowhouse in Toronto. I never saw her formally plant a garden. But there were always Tomato plants amongst the flowers lining her tiny backyard. When preparing a meal with tomatoes, she would scrape out excess seeds onto a plate. Once the kitchen was cleaned up, Grandma would just toss the seeds out onto the garden soil and let nature take its course.
My Grandfather had been the one for whom the backyard was a labour of love. I have pics of a lush yard with mixed plantings of horseradish, ferns, annuals,perennials, vegetables and amongst the vegetation meat rabbits and pigeons in cages. After he passed away, many of the plants requiring hard work I'm assuming were given away to friends or relatives.
But Grandma always had Snapdragons and Tomatoes.
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Post by canadamike on Apr 11, 2010 22:18:19 GMT -5
Telsing, I always end up with hundreds of volunteers and for me they are usually later. I will get some production from a few, but only some.
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Post by Alan on Apr 11, 2010 23:43:52 GMT -5
A few year back I planted a ton of cherry, currant, cheesmani and other small fruited tomatoes in the bottom field. This is the same field that I first tested Astronomy Domine for wet cold soils in as it is constantly wet. That year I had no "weeds" within the astronomy domine patch....well not technically.
But I did have a whole crapload of volunteer small fruited tomatoes. Many were hybrids crossed to the promiscuous little currant tomatoes. The next year I plowed and threw out a big handfull of Ken Ettlingers currant cross tomato seeds and in recent years I have let the field go ferrel. Every year there are new variations of every type of small cherry type imaginable, some of which are worthy of introduction, others which are not so great, but they are there. Many of these seeds make up the bulk of the Rollercoaster cherry tomato mix that I ocassionally offer on the seed list.
A few falls ago while working on The Pink Floyd tomato I noticed during the Indian Summer we had that fall that I had a crapload of segregating Pink Floyd (Brandy Boy) seedlings come up where I had my production crop planted, I dug up many of those and they became my fall greenhouse crop that year as opposed to starting new seeds. They produced well and since Brandy Boy doesn't appear to be a complex cross were fairly uniform in production.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 12, 2010 0:11:39 GMT -5
I normally grow my cherry tomatoes from volunteers by digging up volunteers from last years cherry tomato patch and moving them to wherever I am growing cherry tomatoes this year.
I grow three tomato patches:
1- A cherry tomato patch 2- Whatever slicers/novelties I buy from the nursery 3- My main crop slicers/canners which my brother grows in his greenhouse from the seed we collected last fall from the main crop patch.
In my garden, transplanted determinate Roma tomatoes often produce earlier than cherry tomatoes whether grown from seed or from transplants.
Regards, Joseph
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Post by flowerpower on Apr 12, 2010 5:33:14 GMT -5
I always try to leave some volunteers. I like surprises. lol Mostly it is cherry types I see. Occasionally a paste type will show up.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 12, 2010 6:05:39 GMT -5
I have chia and basil coming up gangbusters in their respective garden plots. I have gotten a few tomatoes amongst the basil, but with the issues I have, I am plucking them until I get all my issues sorted. I need to be able to gather greater quantities of seeds this year as well. I've given away all my cleaned basil seed. I still have dry veg I can shake out. But I want to try "sprouting" it as I think that might be the way to go for year round market, not to mention I'm dying for a decent bowl of pho and I must have Thai basil and bean sprouts in order to have a decent bowl.
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Post by galina on Apr 13, 2010 4:26:25 GMT -5
Very occasionally we get a volunteer plant, but way too late for volunteer fruit here. Main reason is that we get late blight (phytophthora infestans) regularly and often as early as July and that kills off any volunteer plants usually even before they are flowering.
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Post by canadamike on Apr 13, 2010 22:52:26 GMT -5
Basil Never showed up in spring here in 24 years, despite rows of it spreading seeds. Chia is a thing I now see at Walmart that grows like hairs on pottery puppet heads. Is my memory right or else: IT IS SOME KIND OF SAGE. But I do not remember if it could grow here outside. Honestly, tonight, I do not feel like Googling And I doubt anyway I would find something about growing it here. I would have either known or known another freak that knows something about it, kind of an Orflo, who anyway would have already send it to me. The neat thing about this place is always how the knowlege of the others helps us being smaller in terms of idiocy ;D Which reminds me I dearly miss Paquebot. I hope his wife is well and he is too. Has anybody had news of him lately?
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 14, 2010 5:47:16 GMT -5
Chia sprouts like a brassica (basil does also now that I think of it) but it really acts more like a mint after that. I don't think it has any sageish characteristics, but then I don't know much about sage.
Do you think it doesn't re-seed in your area because of the cold?
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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 14, 2010 7:33:50 GMT -5
Well I concur with Michel that I don't get self sowing basil and it's probably that the conditions aren't right for their seeds because I've 'heard' of this phenomena and been jealous of people with self sowing basil. Lucky duckies.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 14, 2010 8:12:55 GMT -5
hmmmm... well... there are certainly pros and cons to everything everywhere. I appreciate the self sowing stuff that I like! ;o)
But, I'm kinda thinking that the issue for you guys might be soil temperature? I mean... hmmm... tomatoes for example. You don't HAVE to start them from seed in a nice little artificially perfect environment. You can have a tomato plant in your garden, then don't bother to pick a few, leave the area alone, and next year a goodly percent of the seed will sprout, grow, and produce fruit. No human intervention required. But the seeds won't sprout in the dead of winter or in the middle of summer. They pretty much all show up at the same time in early spring or when soil temps hit about 50 or so... That is what I have observed both here and in California where we lived in the Bay Area.
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Post by ottawagardener on Apr 14, 2010 9:59:33 GMT -5
I am on a sandy site and do get fruit from tomatoes that are self sown and I can grow basil easily enough from seeds that I sow outside but the seeds do not seem to germinate after spending a winter outside around here so they must just not survive. At least I haven't observed this but tomato seeds do.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 14, 2010 12:38:19 GMT -5
Fascinating. That just blows me away. Gotta love this earth and all her twists, turns and kinks.
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