is there really a right time and a right place?
Seasons accelerate by and before we know it, summer’s ripening fruit is just a memory. If we don’t take the time to consciously observe our actions in the garden and learn from them we can end up in a rut. Year after year speeding by with the same failures and our successes remaining a mysterious shrugs of fate. Books and charts can be useful, but if we blindly follow what works for that person in that location we might never find that a banana plant can flourish in that sunny corner of our Mebournian garden.
Little experiments can be fun (if not entirely scientific) ways of discovering what works for you.
My first garden experiment was in year 8 when I tried growing silverbeet with different levels of fertiliser for science class, are the foolishness of youth. As I remember I wasn’t really keen on eating the silverbeet either. This Tomato Experiment on the other hand involves no pesticides or chemical fertilisers. It’s a step-by-step way to test when to sow and plant out tomatoes in your local area for optimum results.
Won’t you join me in a little investigating? What experiments have you tried in your garden?
THE QUESTION?
If my little daliance in silverbeet trials taught me anything, it’s that the first step is working out what you want to find out.
When should I plant my tomatoes for optimum yields and minimum fuss?
This is my main burning question, staring daggers at a miserable winter’s day I looked to my sow what when chart. I was desperate to start planting the warm weather beauties and it suggested as early as August. But the gardening gurus (Jackie French and Co.) shook their heads sagely from the gardening pages, they warned with furrowed brows: don’t get too hasty child! Don’t sow seeds too early at the first whiff of spring, you’ll end up with inferior plants, more susceptible to disease and pests, weak and sappy with lower yields and lesser fruit. Bah hum bug I replied, I’ll see it when I believe it! So the experiment was born.
I would also like to know:
Does sowing seeds early equal earlier fruit or do later sowing catch up?
When is too late to plant out?
Do tomatoes sown in my Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses grow better than those planted in pots/trays?
Can polystyrene wicking beds work for tomatoes or are raised no dig beds better?
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Thinning the tomato seedlings and mulching around them with coco coir.
Burying stems to encourage roots
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THE TOMATO
I’d like to tell you that I chose the Periforme tomato because it is the most delicious cooked tomato I have ever had and that it was to challenge myself as I find larger tomatoes more difficult to grow than cherry tomatoes. But the truth… I accidentally ordered two packets of these and wanted an excuse to use them. The above are a happy coincidence. This is a late season tomato and ideally I would have preferred to try a mid season variety, but when the internet shopping gods send you a sign, you have to go with it.
What: Tomato Periforme Abruzzo
Why: Good slicing or cooking tomato
Where: Diggers Club Heirloom Seeds
When: Each month 3 seeds per container, 12 total (germination rate 86%). Once the first set of mature leaves appear I can then choose the strongest from each container thinning out the straglers. I then mulch around the remaining seedlings with coconut coir to retain moisture.
How: 4 Plastic Juice Bottle Greenhouses, placed in polystyrene boxes on north facing verandah. The polystyrene box helps insulate the seedlings against weather extremes. The mini juice bottle greenhouse provides enough room for the seedlings to grow until they are ready to plant out without requiring transplanting, which tomatoes really don’t enjoy.
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When they reach 20cm they are ready to plant out, but as I started sowing early it will still be too cold so I add another juice bottle layer and fill it with homemade potting mix up the first set of mature leaves, burying the baby leaves. Roots will form along the the buried stem.
TRUE SPRING RESULTS
Bottle greenhouse Germination:
August Periforme – 14-17 days
September Periforme – 12 days
October Periforme – 11 days
As the days got warmer the Periforme tomatoes germinated much faster.
Comparison Germination:
August Purple Russian – 19 days
September Beam’s Yellow Pear – 13 days
October Valentine – 14 days
These tomatoes were sown in trays then transplanted into newspaper pots/milk cartons 7cm wide and 12cm deep. They were left uncovered on a north facing verandah. The August tomato was much slower to germinate, the others only a day behind.
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Although it would have been much more accurate to compare Periforme with Periforme, a girl’s got to have some variety!
End of October
August Periforme already 20cm tall and ready to plant out but the weather is still too cold. Built the soil up around the stem. I wondered if I should have attempted to plant out the August tomatoes now instead of waiting, by next month their stems will be so long it will be difficult to plant them out without damaging them. September Periforme quickly catching up to the height of the Augusts and look like they will be ready to plant out in November as well. I wondered if I should have bothered with the August planting at all. We shall see what the yields reveal.
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