Had to say it twice. My Dad said that when it is ripe to plant they respond well. I'd add control makes us feel like we know what is going on.
Bill
Ruth Stout Method too.
I would have to agree. I've left volunteers in the garden and they go crazy when they are ready. Agree about control too. Illusion, eh?
Hmmm....extra work for no advantage maybe. Kinda fun though.
Charlie
I just thought of a downside to this method. I always have volunteer tomatoes in the garden, from dropped tomatoes and from compost.
How could you be sure of what was what?
Charlie
How about taking SOME of our seeds and plant directly close to time appropriate . Names make us feel like we know what is what .Still the ones in my compost seem to ignore false starts and grow because it is their nature. I hope this sheds light on why do we may or may not need potting soil. I like to start things in my cold frame but maybe it is my ego.
Heavy duty questions no answers just on going experiments.
Bill
I just bought six of the dregs of Home Depot's late season tomato plants. All different varieties; half heirloom and half uncommon (at least to me). That seed savers site mentioned keeping them 10' apart to limit cross-pollination, but that's not going to happen. I'm intrigued to save these seeds and see what their babies are like next year. Who knows if they're even labeled right at HD. One looks like a pumpkin vine.... Threw them in pots of compost from my three-year old pile. Lots of white powdery fungus in the pile......... I'm only going to feed them a puree of eggshells, banana, and coffee grounds, with a little molasses and fruit juice........ same as last year.
Life is lots of questions and few answers, eh? And the ego is a bit problematic for sure.
This exchange keeps bringing me back to the method you once related about the guy that broadcast mixed seeds in a large area and worked them in. Kinda like walking thru a living farmers market when hungry.
I am going to try directseeding some tomatoes and hope for the best. If one is counting upon beefsteaks and gets cherries, though.........;-)
Less work and bother sounds good.
Charlie
Hey Daddio, good to see you back around!
I've save seeds from tomatoes growing right next to each other. Don't save seeds from double blossom/ double tomatoes. Suzanne Ashworth says that potato leaf varieties may cross if in close proximity.
OK....this sounds like a recipe or something. I don't understand. I sense I need an explanation of your method. Straight aged compost as growing medium, good and fungal, fed the mix you describe....what gives? Something do do with the fungus???
As soon as it warms up a little more I am going to be making compost tea.
I'm really getting into this composting thing this year. I'm about to run out of acceptable areas to be building piles. I've access to unlimited horsepoo, grass clippings, leaves.....it's looking goooood!
Charlie
In the 80's, I taught a graduate course in ecology in the Puget Sound region. One of the field trips we took was to Fr. Lewis. Their sewage treatment was state of the art, for a number of reasons. They also had a HUGE covered sludge drying bed. The sludge would dry into "concrete", but the public was allowed to come in and grind up blocks of it in provided hand-cranked grinders and take as much as they wanted for fertilizer. A side effect was "easter egg" tomatoes -- you never knew what you would get, but you always got some.
cheers
oz, who once got smallish, pear shaped, yellow tomatoes from using that stuff.
To much other stuff to do anything but lurk. I still read most things, but too lazy to type.......
Ah, explains the "pumpkin" vine one. It may just be deformed and was one of two that lost their labels through the checkout to home transport.
No method other than laziness and practicality. Compost (as is) 'cause I have it. Too lazy and pressed for time to sift it. I have few kitchen leavings except for the above and it seems too little for my compost heap. My old neighbour used to grow fantastic potted plants with nothing but our backyard "dirt" and only added eggshells. Which was silly as our soil has abundant calcium. But who's to argue with egg mojo....... The other stuff is known to feed the microbiology, so that's where it's going. I'm also curious how these tomatoes do, considering all I did was scrape up some organic backyard "debris" and plant. May be useful for the future. Not everyone can afford to buy all the groovy stuff. I know that it did fine for me last year, cost nothing extra, and produced more than enough for the lazy effort...
Gardening is just a necessary by-product of the composting obsession...... I'm still working through the huge finished pile of three years ago.
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