TOMATO CUTTINGS

August 30, 2013 No Comments

easy guide to propagate tomatoes when it is too late to sow

A tomato plant wasn’t born to stand to attention on a tomato stake, pruned within an inch of it’s life to a singledelicate stem. It’s a rambler, and like pumpkins and herbs like thyme all it needs is to touch its stem to the earth for it to sprout roots. This delightful trick can be used to your advantage when it gets too late for any tomatoes you sow to mature in time to bear any significant fruit.

A tomato cutting will bear fruit in a matter of weeks after the cutting sprouts roots.

So I plant all my tomato seeds in True Spring (Southern Hemisphere: September-October, Northern: March-April), plant them out in the beginning of High Summer (Southern: November, Northern: May). Then once these grow multiple stems about 20-30cm long I take cuttings to make extra plants from High Summer -Deep Summer (Southern: December-Mid March).

And here’s the best part! Tomato cuttings don’t actually need to be cut off the parent plant until they have grown roots! “What?!?” you say, here’s how:

ingredients

plastic juice/soft drink bottle

knife

secateurs & methylated spirits for disinfecting

hessian/cloth

scissors

electrical tape

chock

seed raising mix & trowel

chamomile tea

cutting-plastic-soft-drink-bottle-reuse-recycle

step 1

Cut base and top off the bottle. As bottles are wider at the bottom than the top, the top should be cut off at the point where it is slightly smaller than the base.

step 2

Cut hole in base for tomato stem to pass through.

step 3

Chose a 20-30cm long stem and after disinfecting your secateurs with metho cut off all but 2-3 top leaf stems. Also remove any flowers so the tomato puts all its energy into producing roots.

how-to-make-tomato-cutting-plastic-bottle

step 4

Cut a piece of hessian to fit in the bottle base. Snip a cross in the centre for the tomato stem to be threaded through. You do not need to cut the stem from the parent tomato plant! Take the rest of the bottle and place the top end in the base.

step 5

Tape the base to the bottle with electrical tape.

step 6

Fill bottle with seed raising mixture being careful not tpo bruise or snap the tomato stem.

chamomile-tea-tomato-cutting-healthy-resilient

step 7

Chock up on a piece of wood. A brick and timber board work well. Label with name and date.

step 7

Water with diluted chamomile tea.

protect-tomato-seedlings-sun-roots-develop

the next few weeks

step 9

Keep your tomato “cutting” moist for the next few weeks, it’s very important that it doesn’t dry out.

Roots should start forming in the first week, but there is no need to cut in until you are ready to plant it in its new home. It should start developing new leaves as well.

step 10

By this stage you should clearly see a mass of roots through the plastic bottle. Cut the tomato cutting from its parent below the bottle, remove the bottle base cut the bottle along the side to slip it out before planting. A cut bottle can be reused by electrical taping the side back together.

why are bottle tomato cutting best?

Tomatoes are very prone to transplant stress. With an established root system before being snipped from itsparent your cuttings are more likely to survive.

It’s a great way to “clone” any particularly resilient, tasty tomatoes you have in your garden and extend its harvest beyond the life of its parent.

They transport well in their bottle pots.

As your cutting is already around 15cm tall out of the bottle your plant will grow tomatoes much sooner than a cutting taken the traditional way (only around 6cm) or a seedling grown from seed.

A great way of re-using plastic bottles that would otherwise go in the recycling bin. A clear bottle means you can see the roots growing.

step 8

Wrap the bottles in hessian to protect the growing roots from the sun and retain moisture.

Garden

HIGH SUMMER 2012 HARVEST

August 22, 2013 No Comments

tomato-stake-protecting-tomatoes-from-sunburn

HIGH SUMMER HARVEST

what grew November-January 2012

Hot weather has sent carrot flowers shooting towards blue skies and purple chive flowers lend colour to a lush green garden. Tomatoes tease, slowly swelling, but too green to eat.

THE HARVEST

COMPANIONS

lettuce
silverbeet/chard
rosemary
lime balm
lemon balm
mints – peppermint, orange, spearmint, common, basil mint
nasturtiums
marjoram – golden
oregano
calendula
bay leaves
strawberries
raspberries
thyme – common, lemon
spinach
sow thistle
artichokes
amaranth
violas

OTHER

eggs

BRASSICACEAE

roquette
tatsoi

UMBELLIFERAE

carrots
parsley
coriander

AMARYLLIDACEAE (ALLIUMS)

spring onions
chives
garlic
red onion

LEGUMIONOSAE

Bean –purple climbing, rattlesnake, blue lake

INEDIBLE CUT FLOWERS

californian poppies
nigella

Garden

PLANTING OUT TOMATOES

August 1, 2013 7 Comments

transplanting solanaceae and other warm weather crops
growing tomatoes in a temperate climate

garden-planting-out-plan-solanaceae-companions

After months of waiting, it’s finally here, that tiny window where you can plant out your hot weather crops! Blink and it’s gone, a month before it was too cool and a month later too hot, without enough time for the fruit to mature before autumns chill prevents fruit ripening. In Melbourne this magical month is November, when the minimum temperature doesn’t dip below 10C, but the rain has not yet dried up and those scorching 30C plus days are few and far between. In the Northern Hemisphere this would be May.

Spring’s warm weather companions have been flourishing, beans twisting around stakes and lettuces feathering over the earth to protect your delicate young seedlings from the worst of sun and wind. The rest of your hot weather lovers such as basil can go in now with your tomatoes, capsicums, chillis and eggplants. There was room for a cucumber too in the corner of my garden bed, to twirl up and over an arbour.

A month of work paves the way for two months of rest

After you slog this month out you will have earned that beach vacation and the garden should be fairly self sufficient. Remember don’t spoil your plants and they won’t throw a tantrum when you’re not there.

►
My garden bed plan for the warmer months. Tomatoes in the centre of each triangle, supported by string thread around stakes. Lettuces suceeded by basil, marigolds, amaranth
Stage 1: September – November
Stage 2: December – March

Grow plants densely in hot weather to protect them form sunburn, otherwise put up a shadecloth.

plastic-bottle-greenhouse-tomato-seedling-propagation

Tips for planting out tomatoes

In warmer months plant in the evening to allow transplants to recover overnight. The opposite is true in cold weather, where the plants need the warm day to prepare for the cold night, to reduce the likelihood of rot.

Tomatoes are nutrient hungry, but if your soil is too rich they will produce a lot of leaves an no fruit. Dig a hole twice as deep as your seedling’s pot and place poultry manure in the bottom, cover this with soil and plant seedling on top. The plant will grow deeps roots, and reach the manure when it need the extra boost, when covered in fruit.

Avoid overhead watering as this can contribute to sun spot and fungal spores can be splashed onto foliage from other plants.

Plant hot weather crops when the minimum temperature is consistently over 10C

Plant tomato seedlings deeper than they were in their pot so the roots are nice and deep to protect them from drying out. Like cucurbits and some herbs, tomatoes form roots on their stems when in contact with soil.

There is no need to prune. Studies have shown yield is actually reduced when plants are pruned.Wounds on plants increase their risk of disease. If you need to cut them, use secateurs disinfected with mentholated spirits.

Plants can get stressed because they don’t get enough moisture. Water your seedling thoroughly an hour before transplanting and for added benefit use seaweed tea. This helps soil cling to the roots and minimises shock. If it is really dry fill the hole with water and wait for it to drain into the soil before planting.

Mulch thickly around plant to keep soil damp.

watercolour-plastic-bottle-greenhouse-tomato-roots

Tomatoes have delicate stems, be careful when handling not to bruise of bend them. The same goes for the roots, be gentle!

mychorrizal-fungi-roots-seedling-propagation

Add mycorrhiza fungi to the roots of the seedling before transplant. Whilst natural ecosystem such as the forest floor have millions of fungi in the soil, garden beds often require the addition of beneficial fungi to act as agents for nutrient exchange, making nutrients otherwise locked up available.

transplant-tomato-polywicking-bed-chamomile-tea

Water deeply to saturate the soil and make sure it stays moist for the first few days after transplant. Try a chamomile herb tea After that water only once a week, but very deeply. This encourages deep roots, watering too often, and too shallowly causes roots to form near the surface and these are vulnerable to drying out on a hot day. Plants watered too become soft and delicate.

Garden

EDIBLE WEEDS

June 30, 2013 13 Comments

Edible weeks along the Merri Creek, Brunswick, Australia

companions planting was never so easy

A Permaculture garden is the ultimate multicultural society. However, whilst diversity is encouraged in the garden that doesn’t mean Permaculturalist’s are egalitatarian, oh no not all plants are created equal, just start up a conversation about comfrey or conversely kikuyu grass and you’ll see. But a plant’s indigenous lineage doesn’t guarantee it spot in the veggie path, especially in Australia where the natives are quite mean with their nutrients, the eucalypt tree even has a nasty trick where it drops its toxic leaves on the ground to discourage competition. So in a community garden it’s not great, but as a woodchip path it is quite a good grass suppressant.

Foreign plants do quite well here, they appear here there and everywhere without you having to spread a single seed and they are very hardy. Any other gardener looks on these “weeds” with bored cynacism and reaches for the round-up.

Don’t judge them on those nasty rumours that Monsanto spins, they can be useful and some are edible too.

DANDELION

Native to Europe and Asia, can use to loosen overgrazed, compacted pastoral soils as well as in the humblke veggie patch.

Dandelion companion planting

Their long deep tap roots break up hard soil and bring nutrients up from deep down to benefit shallower rooted annuals without competing for surface nutrients. They also release ethylene gas which aids in fruit ripening, so a patch of dandelions around your late green tomatoes might be a good idea. Their bright yellow flowers attract beneficial insects such as bees to pollinate your garden.

Most intriguing of all is their power to combat fusarium wilt, a soil-borne fungal disease that effects tomatoes grown in the same soil year after year. This disease reduces health and yield of tomatoes, but dandelion roots produce an acid that starves the disease of iron.

We harvest the root, peel it and use it in stirfries for a potatoey/parsnipy substitute.

Used as a nutritious salad green, benefits of dandelion include:

high in iron, calcium, vitamin K, B6, E, K thiamin, antioxidants, beta- & alpha-carotene

treatment for liver disease, kidney and spleen complaints, skin conditions, digestive aid

cancer fighting properties

acne remedy

SOW THISTLE

Sow thistle too is said to aid growth, but I’m slightly suss on this particular edible. There was a particularly old and serrated one in my garden bed which I brushed passed. Where it touched my skin I came up in what can only be described as a horribly itchy flea bite like rash. With a reaction that extreme I’m loathed to put it in my mouth, no matter how nutritious it is. Turns out I’m one of those unlucky people with an allergy to the old Sow!

So this a lesson to everyone before eating any new food whether it be a weed or just an exotic fruit, test a little bit first don’t go swallowing a whole green smoothie full of it! One day I will try cooking it then doing a patch test on my wrist first, but until then I think I will just stick to the nettles and dandelions until I’m REALLY HUNGRY!

NETTLES

Native to Europe and Northern Africa, be heartened that when you feel its sweet sting at your ankles and merrily hop in pain that it is an indicator that your soils is oh so fertile, pop a tomato next door for optimum results.

This was one of the Permaculture lessons that blew my mind, Peak Oil aside, could that horrible stinging nettle that I had long called weed be a friend?

Nettle in companion planting
Nettles are said to increase disease resistance and resilience to insect attacks. People even go so far to say it improves the flavour of its neighbours, increasing their production of aromatic oils. As a tomato companion they improve their keeping quality by slowing down the fermentation process and for eggplants they are the ladybird’s preferred breeding ground so bad news for the resident aphids. And remember why nettles make a good mulch?

I recommend you pick up a copy of Adam Grubb’s Weed Forager’s Handbook to learn more, it’s really fascinating.

Nettles as edible
Eat the tender young leaves dried, blended or cooked for these benefits:

high in antioxidants

40% protein by dried weight

dense in mineral, especially calcium (for the vegan’s out there you onlyneed 150g to get your recommended daily intake)

reduces pain of arthritis

anti-dandruff properties

mild hayfever remedy

eczema remedy

diuretic & hypotensive – reduces blood pressure

astringent for nosebleeds and internal hemorrhaging

detoxifying blood tonic

reduces benign enlargement of the prostate

add dried to chook feed, helps to protect against disease

So next time you feel tempted to pull that weed, maybe rethink the definition and pull the ornamental taking up valuable tomato space instead.

Nettles are a protected place for caterpillars to transform into beautiful butterflies.

Sometimes confused (by me at least 😉 ) with RED RIB DANDELION which is actually a chicory, but still a great addition to a salad!

easy guide to propagate tomatoes when it is too late to sow

A tomato cutting will bear fruit in a matter of weeks after the cutting sprouts roots.

ingredients

step 1

step 2

step 3

step 4

step 5

step 6

step 7

step 7

the next few weeks

step 9

step 10

why are bottle tomato cutting best?

step 8

what grew November-January 2012

THE HARVEST

COMPANIONS

OTHER

BRASSICACEAE

UMBELLIFERAE

AMARYLLIDACEAE (ALLIUMS)

LEGUMIONOSAE

INEDIBLE CUT FLOWERS

A month of work paves the way for two months of rest

Tips for planting out tomatoes

companions planting was never so easy

Don’t judge them on those nasty rumours that Monsanto spins, they can be useful and some are edible too.

DANDELION

SOW THISTLE

NETTLES

Nettles are a protected place for caterpillars to transform into beautiful butterflies.

Butterfly metamotphosis photos taken by my clever dad