Next generation
3 August 2022 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI disembowelled the seeds from a number of towel-tomatoes last night, just in case some of them weren't sufficiently ripe (you really can't tell from the outside which fruits will have decent seeds in at all), and laid them out on a fresh piece of towel for next year.
They really have been exceedingly successful this time round. I have been picking the fruit diligently in order to relieve the plants of the burden, and despite the small size of the tomatoes there are almost enough to use in cooking, although it seems wasteful to do so. (Also wasteful to go out and buy tomatoes when I'm growing them myself, of course, although they are not expensive at this time of the year!)
The Demon Red chillies are now all in flower, and the first flower has now dropped off to leave a little fruit behind it. So they just have to do some very, very rapid growing and ripening over the next month or so. Looking back at last year I can see that those chillies were in fact only just starting to set at this point (albeit one of them had fruits "a couple of inches long" on August 6th!) and were eventually harvested towards the end of October; at least these ones have miniature fruits that don't need to grow so much in the first place!
So far as I remember, when that first flower opened it was on the top of the plant. There are now fresh shoots at least a couple of inches above it -- the Demon Red plants have really taken off and put on a growth spurt in the last couple of weeks, being now eight or nine inches tall and covered all over in buds. It's just a pity it has taken them since April to do so :-p
Referring back to the seed packet, I note that it says the fruits should be harvestable 'from July to September'... (However, it also tells you to plant them indoors in February at a temperature of 75F, which simply wasn't an option.)
In fact I don't actually *need* any more chillies at the moment, since I haven't been using all that many and still have a jar of them left -- I could probably eke them out for another full year.
The photo from last year is misleading as to just how *large* those ones are!
So the main aim of this exercise has been to try to establish a successful line of self-perpetuating plants well-suited to container growing, like the towel-tomatoes. For which purpose I do need them not only to set fruit but to ripen seed (and even so we shan't know until next year if they breed true or not).
I am still waiting to see what colour the 'pink' Swan River daisies are going to be -- frankly it looks more as if they are going to be white than anything else! They seem to have an exceeding odd method of flower formation where the buds open to display the centre, and then the petals grow inwards from the edge of the opening to cover it over again.
The one in the largest pot (which admittedly was put in there in the first place because it was threatening to overbalance all the time in its previous pot) has grown to a quite ridiculous size, much larger than last year, and is over-topping even the heritage tomatoes. The blue Swan River daisies also now have flower buds on, but because the first sowing failed, they are still some way behind the 'pink'.
They really have been exceedingly successful this time round. I have been picking the fruit diligently in order to relieve the plants of the burden, and despite the small size of the tomatoes there are almost enough to use in cooking, although it seems wasteful to do so. (Also wasteful to go out and buy tomatoes when I'm growing them myself, of course, although they are not expensive at this time of the year!)
The Demon Red chillies are now all in flower, and the first flower has now dropped off to leave a little fruit behind it. So they just have to do some very, very rapid growing and ripening over the next month or so. Looking back at last year I can see that those chillies were in fact only just starting to set at this point (albeit one of them had fruits "a couple of inches long" on August 6th!) and were eventually harvested towards the end of October; at least these ones have miniature fruits that don't need to grow so much in the first place!
So far as I remember, when that first flower opened it was on the top of the plant. There are now fresh shoots at least a couple of inches above it -- the Demon Red plants have really taken off and put on a growth spurt in the last couple of weeks, being now eight or nine inches tall and covered all over in buds. It's just a pity it has taken them since April to do so :-p
Referring back to the seed packet, I note that it says the fruits should be harvestable 'from July to September'... (However, it also tells you to plant them indoors in February at a temperature of 75F, which simply wasn't an option.)
In fact I don't actually *need* any more chillies at the moment, since I haven't been using all that many and still have a jar of them left -- I could probably eke them out for another full year.
The photo from last year is misleading as to just how *large* those ones are!
So the main aim of this exercise has been to try to establish a successful line of self-perpetuating plants well-suited to container growing, like the towel-tomatoes. For which purpose I do need them not only to set fruit but to ripen seed (and even so we shan't know until next year if they breed true or not).
I am still waiting to see what colour the 'pink' Swan River daisies are going to be -- frankly it looks more as if they are going to be white than anything else! They seem to have an exceeding odd method of flower formation where the buds open to display the centre, and then the petals grow inwards from the edge of the opening to cover it over again.
The one in the largest pot (which admittedly was put in there in the first place because it was threatening to overbalance all the time in its previous pot) has grown to a quite ridiculous size, much larger than last year, and is over-topping even the heritage tomatoes. The blue Swan River daisies also now have flower buds on, but because the first sowing failed, they are still some way behind the 'pink'.