These are the starts of some new Pink Lady heirloom tomatoes, to replace the ones I lost in the windstorm a couple of weeks ago. I bought some other varieties of heirloom transplants at the nursery as replacements, but was crushed to think I was not going to have any Pink Ladies on the table this summer, as they are the best tomatoes I've ever eaten or canned -- meaty, flavorful and HUGE.
But the grower at the nursery insisted it was NOT too late in the season to plant some more seeds and get my Pink Ladies back, in time for at least late summer picking, so last week I placed some seeds on a moist paper towel, covered them with Saran Wrap, and waited. Even though these seeds are two years old, they still sprouted, faithfully! And yesterday I was able to take the seedlings and put them into some potting soil.
These babies are going to be spoiled and pampered, waiting until they are fairly large to go into the ground. I'm not losing a crop again. I'm not even particularly concerned with how many tomatoes they produce this year, only that I can again save some seeds from just one tomato and have many more Pink Lady tomatoes next year, when I will be wiser about waiting to place them in-ground.
In a related story, I was at a Daughters of the American Revolution meeting last week and spoke to our registrar, who is an avid gardener. Her advice? Put nothing in the ground before May 1. She said between the possibility of frosts/freezes and windstorms, planting before then is a gamble. The gal at the nursery said the same thing, so there seems to be some consensus there.
Well, I learned that one the hard way, but at least I did learn. I am not so much deterred as determined.
How funny that as radically different as our climates are, you can only plant 15 days before me! But as you've said, the growing season out there goes much deeper into the fall than mine does. Of course in Ohio, one never knows. Some years we can garden until Christmas..others are finished by October 1.
ReplyDeleteYa, I'm still kind of stunned by how late the spring planting season begins here. But while we do go much later into fall than you, it's also wicked hot here until about the end of October so I'm not sure if its worth it!
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