Cold tolerant tomatoes, right down Joseph's alley.

[DarJones]

You were most likely observing a solitary bee of the orchard mason group. They are highly attracted to flowers that HAVE POLLEN. If the rest of the plants are relatively poor pollen producers or if they produce low amounts of pollen for the given temperatures, then few bees will visit them.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I looked more carefully at the flowers. The Jagodka has perfectly formed fully functional flowers. The anther cone is long and extended. The petals are arched back from the anther cone to give full access. The bumble bee liked it because it was providing for the bee like a flower aught to.

The other flowers I looked at, and that the bee rejected, are dysfunctional. They had anther cones that were hidden by a whirl of double or triple petals, or the anther cone was tiny so as to be hidden by the petals, or the petals were spike-like and almost parallel with the anther cone thus preventing access. A lot of inadequate flowers.

Jagodka would be worth growing for that reason alone: Perfect flowers that attract pollinators are more likely to be cross-pollinated. The stigma was fully inside the anther cone, so that's not ideal for a cross pollinating tomato population, but I'll definitely look more closely at other plants and cross jagodka to something with an extended stigma.

Here's what the patch looked like this evening. In the foreground are other tomatoes and my popcorn. To the right is a spot in which nothing was planted this year, so it's just growing weeds as a ground cover. Need to mow and till them now to prevent weed seeds from forming. I labeled Jagodka as C4. I labeled the first plant in each row. Plants within the rows are numbered 1-6 going away from the camera.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

It was one of the smaller species of western bumblebee. Around here they are a common pollinator of tomatoes. I plant Phacelia tanacetifolia to attract them and feed them so that there will be more of them around to cross-pollinate the tomatoes and potatoes. I leave fallen clumps of grass on the edges of my fields to provide nesting places.

[richardw]

Do you not get a lot of wind there to help with the pollinating of your tomatoes

[steev]

I certainly get lots of wind to help pollination, but also lots of pollen-killing heat.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Here is the July 12th summary of the tomato trial. I didn't rank the tomatoes, and I didn't evaluate the blossoms like I wanted to. I didn't make a video. My summer work schedule makes me tired and cranky. I am so not a morning person, but if I'm gonna get anything done with my Viking genes I have to be in the garden an hour before sunrise. Grumble. Grumble.

The flowering data is for the last 6 weeks. * indicates flowers present. In the fruit column there is one # for each fruit on the plant. Siberia is pretty much DOA. I don't allow blossom end rot in my garden.

Tag	Name	Flowering	Number of Fruits
A1	Wheatley's Frost Resistant	__****	####
A2	Tastiheart	___***
A3	Superbec	____**
A4	Spiridonovskie Red	__****	#############
A5	Siberia	___***	### Blossom End Rot
A6	Sasha's Altai	____**
B1	Purple Russian	______
B2	PI 120256	______
B3	Peron Sprayless	____**
B4	Nevskiy Red	__****	#################
B5	Moskovich	___**_
B6	Matina	_*****	##########
C1	LA 3969	____**
X2	Sungold	_*****	##### Colorado Potato Beetle
C4	Jagodka	_*****	########################################################
C5	I-3 Red	_____*
C6	Earlinorth	******	############
D1	Boney-M Red	__****	####
D2	Hybrid Cross	____**
D3	Bellstar	___***	########
D4	Barnaulskiy Konsermyi Red	___***	###
D5	Joseph's Direct Seeded	______
D6	Joseph's Earliest Slicer	_*****	####
E1-E6	Joseph's Landrace	__****

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Today there were two different species of small western bumblebee working the tomato flowers. Sorry I couldn't get good photos... I'm paying more attention and marking which plants they like to work. Eventually I want to rank the flowers based on cross pollination potential. The sun beats me down, so it may not be soon. It was around 100 yesterday, but cloudy, so that was bearable.

[steev]

That triple-digit heat is hard to bear, for sure. That's why I ride the hammock at midday; it's just not worth frying the brains too much.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I was walking past the patch for the cold/frost tolerant tomatoes today, and I couldn't help but notice one of the tomatoes is getting a slight yellow tinge to it. And the winner is... for the 3rd year in a row... "Joseph's Earliest Slicer".

I took photos and a video. Perhaps I'll post them tomorrow since I'm staying out of the garden.

[DarJones]

Joseph, check it for blossom end rot or a worm hole. That is the usual cause of the first tomato to ripen.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I'll check.

There are plenty of bug bites among the tomatoes this year on both fruits and foliage. Seems like we are having a 100 year attack of flea beetles. I'm half tempted to rank the foliage/fruit on susceptibility to flea beetles. But I don't know what value that would serve because it's such a rare occurrence to have so many so late in the season. Perhaps I'll dig out my old standby: Diatomacious earth.

My garden has two worm-like things that eat tomatoes (millipede? and nematode?). They are both soil born and attack only tomatoes that are sitting directly on the clay.

While there have been a few potato beetles on the tomatoes this year, they haven't selected one plant to constantly devour like I have seen on some individual plants in the past. I'll probably give the tomatoes a pass regarding the potato beetles.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Yesterday's video of the tomato trials has been uploaded. At about 2:34 there is a quick and weedy tour of the garden.

Cold/Frost tolerant tomato trial

[davida]

Jul 18, 2013 18:20:39 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

Yesterday's video of the tomato trials has been uploaded. At about 2:34 there is a quick and weedy tour of the garden.

Cold/Frost tolerant tomato trial

Joseph,

Nice video. Your garden is huge. Also, really enjoyed your permaculture video. In it, you said that your alder tree was useless. I thought that alder trees were excellent nitrogen fixing trees. Is this an alder species that does not fix nitrogen or do you not need the nitrogen in this system?

David

[steev]

Can't you use that alder to smoke fish, or have you no fish?

People I've known from Oregon and Washington swear by alder; personally, I prefer apricot or cherry for smoking fish. I think they've just got a glut of alder.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I apologize for speaking poorly of the Alder. The thing about permaculture gardening is that I don't always get to choose what grows in a space like I can in my fields. I grumble too much about the choices of the previous inhabitants.

The previous video was of my middle sized field. Here's a video of the larger (South) field a few minutes later. It was too windy for good sound, so I wasn't going to post it. I sure love the sound of Rainbirds. tck tck tck tck tck. Sometimes after dark, when there is no moonlight, I'll stand in the field and listen for the sound of each nozzle in the line to make sure they are working properly before I go to bed. Such a soothing sound to me.

I only know of this one alder tree in the vicinity. Never tried smoking with it. There is an abundance of apple, cherry, peach, and apricot wood around here. My brother smokes lots of fish.

edit: I went and sat under the alder for a few minutes, studying the surroundings. I think that I dislike it because it is out of it's element. About 1/4 of the leaves on it are dead. It doesn't get enough water where it grows, and it is super arid around here, and the alder is located on a hill so the soil drains super quickly even if it does get rain or irrigation. The falling leaves collect down-slope in an area where their nitrogen is less useful than it could be. I think a water harvesting swale on contour would help the tree.