Done it! - (must continue - was told title was too short)

(I wrote a post earlier but it seems to have disappeared. Frosty gremlins at work, I'd say!)

Anyway, on Sunday I sowed all my tomatoes, capsicums, chillies and eggplants.

How are you all doing? Have you sown yours yet?

Hi Gnome - I have mine in little Jiffy pots, on the windowsill in the kitchen. I sowed them on Monday. I water them with warm water to try and move things along, and when they are big enough I will pot them and keep them under the front veranda where it is warm and safe from frosts until early Nov. Things are moving along quickly now. Only one more week of Winter to go. This year has surely moved fast.
What have you planted this year? I'm heading out to Vic Roads, but will check mine when I come back and give you the list.
Cheers, Jan

It sure has raced passed me! I can't keep up with it anymore. Suddenly spring is round the corner.

Anyway, I sowed far more than I planned to. Somehow all these seed packets kept jumping into my hand and I had to sow some seeds from them. My excuse(s)? 'Oh, these are quite old, I have to sow them, might not germinate anyway.' - 'I REALLY liked those, must sow some of these.'- 'They are special, must sow them.' - 'DEFINITELY some of these! - 'That's a really great name, must sow them.' ... You get the drift.

Will post the list, if anybody is interested. There are about 42 varieties, I think. Oh, and I forgot to sow Black Cherry. Now, how that could happen is beyond me, because this is a MUST grow. Soooo... better get seeds of that into a pot soon.

Yeah, yeah, heard it all before...................

Black cherry was so prolific last year and so many fell on the ground that I'm going to wait for volunteers! I got the seeds out to decide but procrastinated and decided I'd wait until we get back from South Oz in October - no point in sowing them now with the risk of frosts and it's too much to expect the neighbours to look after the seedlings. I've found from experience that even if I do plant late, they catch up. We'll give the chooks free access to the entire veggie garden too, apart from the strawberries onions and potatoes ( which will be planted soon) so mid October will be my lunatic time. Bloody caravan, bloody men, why can't they leave well alone. What I'm NOT doing this year is too many tomatoes, more cucumbers, small pumpkins and squash and lots more greens, basil and herbs. The Flat leafed parsley and chervil is still going strong from last year. Might try hydroponic somethings for fun.

This is what I bought from NGSF:
Pumpkins: Butternut Hercules, Crown Prince, Windsor Black,
Cucumber: Revel, Long Sweet White,
Tomato: Durinta Hyb., Druzba, Siberian
Eggplant: I think it was called Bonica

How long do you think they will take to germinate at this time of year? No bottom heat, but a reasonably warm room and good light.

Cheers, Jan

Druzba is a lovely tomato. I gre it last year and will again this year.

Blossom wrote:Druzba is a lovely tomato. I gre it last year and will again this year.

Don't do that to me! It is NOT on my list this year. Even though it's a real beauty and everyone should grow it. *sigh*

Jan, these seeds may germinate from 5-14 days. Or sometimes longer. Just give them a little time, depending on surrounding temperature. What's NGSF?

New Gippsland Seed Farm - I didn't want to post that incase Blossom doesn't like pseudo advertising. I buy from them most years. They are not organic as far as I know, and they don't have all the rare varieties, but they give decent quantities of seed. One supplier who shall remain nameless, gives free packets to members. I had a whole 12 seeds in the spinach packet. They have to be kidding?
I had 8 or 9 germinate. You get more than that in a bunch at the supermarket.
NGSF also have a good sized bag of mixed green manure seed for a reasonable price. They are online, and their online store is USEABLE and fairly user friendly which is a big plus.
I decided this year that I am going to chuck all my old veg seed out, but I am thinking now that I will scrooge through the tomatoe seeds and see if some of the old stuff will grow. I will end up with eleventy zillion (as my grandson says) plants but what the heck.

Cheers, Jan

I don't mind you mentioning suppliers at all, it's recommendation, not advertising. So any suppliers you find good value share with others. I've found New Gippsland good value too.

Finished sowing the sunny ones yesterday. As always, many more than I could possible need, but I always give lots away. I have a lot more space now too which may turn out to be a mistake. I'll be tempted to plant out more than I can sensibly look after!
Among the solanums I sowed are some true potato seed. There were spuds growing here when I moved in last year so I let them go to seed and collected some berries. A few have come up and they're tiny. Hard to imagine they'll turn into potato plants!

I'm curious to try some potatoes from seed, and get away from the monoculture. Might come up with something nice, then continue it as a clone.
My tomatoes last year didn't do much until Autumn. I barely watered them, but when we went away before Christmas, i gave them a bucket ful each, and piled the pea straw very deeply round them. I still only watered them about once a week and sparingly because of our stage 4 restrictions, and wanting to eke out the tank water. We had the best and tastiest tomatoes I've grown for a few years, so I will confidently plant this year, and treat them much the same. I'm hoping for lots so i can bottle some in mynew vacola outfit.
Cheers, Jan

Do let us know how they grow Raymondo. Here in Tassie we are very much aware of the risks of potato blight and scab, and it would devastate the state's industry, if disease was in the wild. So rotation and buying in certified seed potatoes are a must. However, in theory, the seeds should grow without the same risks, don;t you think? I've never really contemplated it but as Siri says, cloning would be interesting. I beleive it takes 4 years to stabalise the potato - a bit less than the tomatoes!

Sorry - I use the cloning in the sense of - growing potatoes from potatoes rather than seed. Growing from seed is by sexual reproductions, with a new mix of genes. Cloning is how we grow potatoes already, from small potatoes (they call them seed potatoes but they are genetically all identical) or by dividing perennial plants. Not cloning in the sense of wierd laboratory methods :-)
Cheers, Jan

Ah - that'd be the 4 year thing then. I must say I've never really studied it.

The 4 year thing? Do you mean that it takes 4 years from seed to grow a new variety of spud?
I have often wondered about collecting seed from those little tomatoe fruits on spuds, but have never bothered to try it. I guess it would be fairly random, but might be worth while if it is from a spud that you are particularly fond off. That might improve the chances. Say Dutch creams or Kipflers (spelling can't be right?) Or a cross - I wonder how hard it is to do a successfull deliberate cross pollenation. The flowers are a bit tiny aren't they?
cheers, Jan

I'd imagine deliberate crossing would be relatively straight forward. I've done it a number of times on tomatoes and the flower morphology is much the same, both being solanums. I'll get some pics and keep you posted.