Tomatoes and other plants
29 May 2022 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI split up one of my pots of three towel-tomatoes, into a single large pot of one with the other two going back into the vacated space -- we'll see how they do relative to one another. The roots weren't actually as large as I was expecting from the amount of foliage on display, and from that perspective I don't think they needed repotting yet, although if I had left it longer it would probably have been impossible to tease the roots apart. The other batch of towel-tomatoes will probably have to stay together, albeit possibly in my one giant pot; as I discovered last year, simply having the larger water reservoir is worth it in hot weather, and means that the plants don't suffer so badly and get set back in the heat.
The towel-tomatoes are about six inches high and looking very healthy compared to other people's tomato plants that I have seen this year, especially given that they were outdoor-grown :-)
The heritage tomatoes have darker leaves and are about eight inches tall. Both sets are putting out flower buds, with the pot of towel-tomatoes that I *didn't* separate being the most advanced in that respect.
The Demon Red chillies remain an almost total failure; the most advanced one has managed a weedy second set of true leaves, but the plants are still only a couple of inches tall and still at the seedling stage after several months. No sign of activity from my belated attempt at planting up the saved chilli seed last week, although I probably didn't help matters there by knocking their pot off the kitchen window-sill and having to scrape the compost (and any seeds) off the draining board! Fortunately the 'pot' was only an old plastic jar lid -- the window being double-glazed with no depth of sill to speak of -- and the seeds would not have been all that deeply buried even if they ended up on the bottom instead of under their carefully-calculated quarter-inch covering... however they have not germinated, so far as I can tell.
I also split up the larger pot of 'pink' Swan River daisies from my Mendelian experiment; it will be interesting to see what colour the offspring come out as, although this does of course require a sufficiently large number of adult plants to be able to gauge the colour ratio, if any! No sign of any flower buds on any of those so far. No buds on the mesembryanthemums either, but they are thriving and spreading mightily -- I would resort to thinning them out (I now have three trays) except that again I want to ensure a selection of different colours! I definitely seem to have got the knack of growing them after last year's travails, however, and they should be ideally suited to these hot, dry conditions now that I can get them to set seed.
No Oriental poppies as yet, although they now have some giant flower buds waiting to open. I got zero yellow poppy seedlings, yet again, out of my attempt at germinating last year's seed -- all the possible candidates proved to be red or oriental poppies as they matured.
The smaller of the possibly yellow poppy candidates has now opened a spherical buds and duly identified itself as indeed being the missing Cumbrian poppy -- I still have no idea what happened to it or how it came to re-emerge in a pot of dill that I planted! The larger of the two is a ragged-leaved field poppy which has grown enormous and has more buds on it than any poppy plant I've ever seen, having clearly thrived on being fed along with the (now very squashed) dill. Red poppies are now tossing everywhere, along with the sage, alyssum, cornflower, California poppies, corn-chamomile, corn-marigolds and calendulas (the poached-egg flowers are just about over for the year), and the briar rose now has a lot of blossom on it after I realised that the latest crop of 'new shoots' (which I was pinching off to prevent its getting too large and mangling the washing) were in fact flower buds.
The heritage marigolds (I think they are probably French marigolds rather than African, but I have never been quite sure) are bushing up nicely and just putting out their first buds, so by next week I should have some of those too. Lots of flowers -- and bees!
The strawberry plant, which was stripped by slugs on its first attempt at reviving after the winter, is finally sending out enough new foliage to look healthy again, although it still hasn't attained last year's size. It had one single flower a few weeks ago, which seems to have disappeared without trace instead of setting; possibly the plant ought not to be encouraged to focus on foliage, but it really does need to be a decent size in order to bear fruit.
The oregano plant that I bought expensively at market is thriving and spilling out of its new larger pot, although it still worries me that the leaves barely seem flavoured at all in comparison to the sage, thyme and mint that I have grown with great success -- I actually wonder if I was sold marjoram instead! (The tag in the pot definitely reads Oreganum vulgare.)
The towel-tomatoes are about six inches high and looking very healthy compared to other people's tomato plants that I have seen this year, especially given that they were outdoor-grown :-)
The heritage tomatoes have darker leaves and are about eight inches tall. Both sets are putting out flower buds, with the pot of towel-tomatoes that I *didn't* separate being the most advanced in that respect.
The Demon Red chillies remain an almost total failure; the most advanced one has managed a weedy second set of true leaves, but the plants are still only a couple of inches tall and still at the seedling stage after several months. No sign of activity from my belated attempt at planting up the saved chilli seed last week, although I probably didn't help matters there by knocking their pot off the kitchen window-sill and having to scrape the compost (and any seeds) off the draining board! Fortunately the 'pot' was only an old plastic jar lid -- the window being double-glazed with no depth of sill to speak of -- and the seeds would not have been all that deeply buried even if they ended up on the bottom instead of under their carefully-calculated quarter-inch covering... however they have not germinated, so far as I can tell.
I also split up the larger pot of 'pink' Swan River daisies from my Mendelian experiment; it will be interesting to see what colour the offspring come out as, although this does of course require a sufficiently large number of adult plants to be able to gauge the colour ratio, if any! No sign of any flower buds on any of those so far. No buds on the mesembryanthemums either, but they are thriving and spreading mightily -- I would resort to thinning them out (I now have three trays) except that again I want to ensure a selection of different colours! I definitely seem to have got the knack of growing them after last year's travails, however, and they should be ideally suited to these hot, dry conditions now that I can get them to set seed.
No Oriental poppies as yet, although they now have some giant flower buds waiting to open. I got zero yellow poppy seedlings, yet again, out of my attempt at germinating last year's seed -- all the possible candidates proved to be red or oriental poppies as they matured.
The smaller of the possibly yellow poppy candidates has now opened a spherical buds and duly identified itself as indeed being the missing Cumbrian poppy -- I still have no idea what happened to it or how it came to re-emerge in a pot of dill that I planted! The larger of the two is a ragged-leaved field poppy which has grown enormous and has more buds on it than any poppy plant I've ever seen, having clearly thrived on being fed along with the (now very squashed) dill. Red poppies are now tossing everywhere, along with the sage, alyssum, cornflower, California poppies, corn-chamomile, corn-marigolds and calendulas (the poached-egg flowers are just about over for the year), and the briar rose now has a lot of blossom on it after I realised that the latest crop of 'new shoots' (which I was pinching off to prevent its getting too large and mangling the washing) were in fact flower buds.
The heritage marigolds (I think they are probably French marigolds rather than African, but I have never been quite sure) are bushing up nicely and just putting out their first buds, so by next week I should have some of those too. Lots of flowers -- and bees!
The strawberry plant, which was stripped by slugs on its first attempt at reviving after the winter, is finally sending out enough new foliage to look healthy again, although it still hasn't attained last year's size. It had one single flower a few weeks ago, which seems to have disappeared without trace instead of setting; possibly the plant ought not to be encouraged to focus on foliage, but it really does need to be a decent size in order to bear fruit.
The oregano plant that I bought expensively at market is thriving and spilling out of its new larger pot, although it still worries me that the leaves barely seem flavoured at all in comparison to the sage, thyme and mint that I have grown with great success -- I actually wonder if I was sold marjoram instead! (The tag in the pot definitely reads Oreganum vulgare.)