Tomato Update

Tomato Seedlings

It's sad to see how few tomato seedlings I have this year. I had close to 20 "good" seedlings last year. This year I only have 3 Black Triefele seedlings, 2 Black Krim seedlings, and 1 Holland tomato seedling. I tried starting some of last year's cherry tomato seeds but none germinated. Just today I started another variety of tomatoes (zebra) in hopes that these will do better. In hindsight I realize that I have been using potting soil instead of seed starter this year which may be the problem.

What's Growing 3/25/12

 

Cosmo Seedlings (front) Peony Poppy Seedlings (back)

Like many other places in New England, this was a highly unsually warm week in Boston and many of my plants made good strides as a result of the good weather. I replanted the cosmos into cool-whip containers and they grew their first set of true leaves. Seedlings emerged for many of the plants in my in-door and out-door herb gardens. Particularly exciting was that the Botanical Interests Baby Little Finger Carrot seedlings peeped out of the ground, as this is the first year that I am growing carrots. The baby oranges on the orange tree grew bigger. The orange tree is now consuming about .75 cups of water a day!





Alpine Strawberries (front) Little Finger Carrots - 25 days (back)



The germination rate of my tomatos this year was verry disappointing so I sewed more seeds. Only 3 of 15 Black Krim tomatos germinated and only 5 of 15 Black Trifele tomato seeds germinated. None of the Coyote tomato seeds germinated. I recall that I had much better results last year. Thus, I got some more seeds from my friend to hopefully will get more seedlings. The types of tomatos that might come from the seeds my friend  gave me are a bit of a mystery as they are listed as "good tomato" and "holland tomato."  I also started some of the sugar sweetie tomatos from last year.

Starting Tomatos - Japanese Black Trifele, Black Krim, Coyote Tomatos

Last year I started tomatos on the 17th of March and when  it was time to plant outside my plants were all very small and weak. This year I am starting my tomatos earlier in hopes of having an earlier crop. Last year's crop was disappointing in general with only a handful of tomatos.

Since I am starting my tomatoes from seed, I decided that it would be interesting to plant rare varieties of tomatoes. So far, I have started Japanese Black Trifele, Black Krim, and Coyote varieties. I learned that the Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes are actually from Russia not Japan.
I took 10 - 15 seeds of each variety and placed them on a wet paper towel and in a plastic bag. This will make it easy to put the seeds somewhere warm to germinate. In 10 days or so I will move the strongest of these seeds to little pots of soil.

Do you have any suggestions for varieties I should try out?