tomatoes!

I guess I must´ve been pollinating correctly.  About two weeks after the first tomato flowers opened, the flowers began to shrivel a bit, close, and then fall off.

At first I was worried that perhaps I had been pollinating too forcefully, or overwatering (which is a constant concern), but then I looked inside where the petals had been and saw a tiny green sphere!

Fox cherry tomato was the first to bud and bloom, so it was also first to be pollinated and produce adorable tiny tomatoes.  Since this first tomato, the plants have really taken off.  Here´s a slideshow of the main greenhouse which primarily houses the taller, indeterminate tomato plants:



Even the determinate tomatoes in the smaller greenhouse have begun to bloom and be pollinated.  They were a little behind the cherry tomatoes, but are quickly catching up both in terms of open and pollinated flowers.



They´re really growing so quickly.  The biggest is already larger than a quarter.  I can´t wait until they start to ripen!

first garden planting

Well, the ground has finally warmed up enough to do some early spring planting.  I´ve decided to experiment with extending the garden season beyond summer to include spring and fall, Eliot Coleman style.  Not only will this increase the amount of the year that I´m able to be gardening, but there are also lots of plants that prefer the cooler temperatures and can be grown in the garden before the summer crops can be planted or get too large.  This also increases the number of different types of vegetables I can grow.

For my first spring crop, I´ve decided to try Champion radishes, Bloomsdale spinach, and Sugar Pod snow peas.  These vegetables are all supposed to thrive in cooler temperatures and have a relatively short number of days until maturity.  Again, I ordered all the seeds from Seeds of Change.  I like they way they organize the information about the seeds there.  I feel it´s easy to compare different varieties of seeds and select those that have the best chance of growing and producing high yields in a cooler climate with a shorter typical growing season. 

The three varieties of vegetables I´ve chosen all can supposedly be planted as soon as the ground can be worked.   I first turned over the soil in the garden a few weeks ago, and then broke up the ground more finely last weekend.  Sunday afternoon, with the temperature in the mid-50s, I decided to plant my seeds.

Bloomsdale spinach:

Sugar Pod Snow Pea:

 Champion Radish:

We still have occasional night temperatures in the 20s, so I´ve decided to use a type of season extender for the plants to help them germinate and protect them from frost.  There´re just plastic bins that I was using to collect rain last summer, but I think they´ll work alright for now.

The Champion radish is supposed to be able to germinate at temperatures as low as 45F, and in just three to six days, so I´m expecting to see it sprout first.  The spinach and snow peas both can germinate at 50F, in six to twelve and three to eight days, respectively.  The temperature is supposed to get up into the 80s (!!) this Friday, which should really help speed along the germination.

eggplant germinated

Last year, my eggplant crop really seemed to just be getting started when the season was ending, so this year I wanted to make sure that I had some mature plants ready to go in the garden once the weather got sufficiently warm.  I tried to look for varieties that do well with cooler temperatures and shorter growing seasons, and decided on Italian White, Snowy White, and Black eggplant seeds, all from Seeds of Change.

My seedling heat mat was still out on loan when I first planted the seeds, and so I was trying my hot watering routine.  I successfully germinated three Italian White seeds this way before I decided to reseed and try again once my heat mat returned from guest germination.  The seeds really took off with the additional heat source.  Here´s a slideshow of their progress so far.



You can definitely tell that some of the eggplants germinated before the others, and it seems I really didn´t need to reseed at all.  I was afraid with all the water and lack of germination that the first batch of eggplant seeds had rotted.  Apparently that was not the case, and it seems as though I´m either going to have to get ruthless upon transplanting these seedlings or separate them all out into their own containers and have 50 eggplants.  I think I know which it will be. 

buds open, pollination ensues

The tomato buds have opened and I now have many many beautiful yellow flowers in my greenhouses.



Thankfully, most tomato plants have complete flowers and can self-pollinate with a little encouragement.  A few taps with a stick a couple of times a day is supposedly sufficient for self-pollinating plants.

Pollinating:

The Greenhouse Gardener's Companion says that the morning is, for some reason, the best time to pollinate, but I've found that the flowers aren't always fully open yet early in the morning, and have had better luck with afternoon and evening pollination.

It's so exciting to tap on the bright yellow flowers and see the pollen drift out!  I don't know how long it takes for the flowers to be pollinated and the fruit to emerge, or if I'm even doing it right.  I guess I'll find out if the flowers close up and fall off without producing tomatoes.  As more and more flowers open, I'm becoming increasingly appreciative of the constant work of the bees in my summer garden.

bouquet dill sprouted and more habanero pepper seedlings

About a month ago, I purchased and planted Ferry-Morse Bouquet dill seeds after I had planted the last of the Dukat dill seed packet from Seeds of Change.  I thought that it'd be interesting to compare the two varieties both as plants, and as a culinary herb.

Here's a slideshow of their sprouting progress so far:



Also, four more habanero seeds have germinated!



That brings the habanero seedling count to six so far, and I still have three slots that have not germinated anything.

I was so impressed and pleased with the germination success of the habanero seeds, that I decided to press my luck and try to germinate seeds from a Thai green chile pepper that dried out in the refrigerator in the same bag as the habaneros.  I harvested around 18 seeds from one pepper and planted two per slot in a germinating tray.  I was out of germinating soil, so I just used potting soil, which is denser.  Hopefully, at least a few of them will germinate and I can have a real spicy pepper assortment.

tomato plants are budding!

I finally have some flower buds on my tomato plants. Since the plants are all about three months old, I was really starting to worry that I was going to have to induce blooming myself.



I´m not surprised to see the Oregon Spring Bush and Santiam tomato plants budding since they are supposedly the fastest to mature at around 55-65 days.  I am surprised though, at the Fox cherry buds, since they supposed take 90 days to mature.  Regardless, I´m very pleased that the tomato plants are healthy and happy enough to be budding.  I wonder how long between first buds until ripe fruit?

herb update

About a month ago, I ordered some more herb seeds, this time from Renee's Garden.  The Greek oregano, French thyme, and French rosemary I planted have now all germinated, and the little seedlings are doing wonderfully.

Click on the slideshow to view it larger in Picasa:


The sweet basil replant and the fino verde basil are also looking very healthy.

Sweet basil:

 

Fino verde basil:

 

The main difference (so far) between the sweet and fino verde basil is in the shape and curvature of the leaves.  The sweet basil leaves are much more rounded and arc upward, while the fino verde basil leaves are pointed and lie flat. 

Here're both side-by-side for easy comparison:

In terms of flavor, the fino verde basil is supposedly stronger and spicier than sweet basil, and Seeds of Change says that the leaves retain their flavor even after flowering.

The shelf cilantro is doing well.  I've moved it to a west-facing windowsill, and while it's hard to beat the growth rate in a greenhouse, all of the seedlings now have primary leaves.

We're starting to get into sunnier and warmer weather here, which is creating nicer growing conditions for the plants by the window and adding intense broad spectrum supplementary light to the greenhouses.  It would be nice to live somewhere that had sunnier winters so that the fluorescent lights would be supplemental to the daylight instead of the other way around.

Pimientos de padrón transplanted

I finally transplanted my six pimiento de padrón plants.



I´m very pleased with their progress.  All of the plants have nice shiny leaves and lots of new leaf sprouts.  A couple of the plants have some yellowing leaves that could possibly be indicative of photobleaching.  Since I know that these pepper plants require an intense light source, I´m thinking that the yellowing is more likely a sign that they needed to have been re-transplanted before now.  Hopefully in their new containers with fresh soil, they will quickly recover.