Winter Tomatoes

The game is on.

I have a very fancy-pants plant light installed and that I use for seedlings in the spring. Well, I decided that I will grow tomatoes this winter. I have planned to do cherries, figuring they'd be easiest, but I discovered a 16", well developed volunteer in one of the deck pots as we were tidying up for end-of-season.

Problem is that I have no idea what it is. I can tell from the leaves that it is an heirloom, but I grew several in the vicinity. I hope it is one of the yummier ones.

We tend it carefully, using a cheap battery toothbrush to move around the pollen. It is working. Right now there are about a dozen tomatoes growing.

I have much to be thankful for.

Reply to
Boron Elgar
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I've long wondered whether this would be worth doing. Please keep us informed as to your experiment's outcome, and what you've learned!

{and I hope your volunteers are better than mine}

Reply to
Frank Miles

In season, I have a bed that is mostly volunteers. I have had excellent luck with them - many varieties, although I cannot say that any of the volunteers has bred true.

Reply to
Boron Elgar

Our best tomato crop this year was from volunteers from last years toms. Tasted pretty good too and were very prolific. I hope those come up again next year or something even better.

We planted basil when we moved here in 2012, stuff comes up every year. Don't need to seed it, fertilize it, or do anything but pick it. Now that's something good and cheap.

Reply to
George Shirley

I am, in many ways, a frugal gardener, but that frugality is always part of my respect for nature. If Mother Nature wants to give me back some annuals as perennials, who am I to complain?

Reply to
Boron Elgar

We pretty much do the same thing, if it's free and no problem, let it grow. We have a small herb garden, sage, rosemary, oregano, chives of two or three types, Mexican Mint Marigold (tastes like tarragon which doesn't grow well for us, and a few others, including the basil. At our old place we had a lot of chickweed, pretty good in salads. Occasionally I would run into someone who was really knowledgeable about wild salad greens and would pick their minds. Some pretty good eating stuff out there if you're knowledgeable and careful. I carry the book with me.

Reply to
George Shirley

I have never had the courage to forage, but I will take any seed or pit or cutting and try to get it to grow. I had a lovely pomegranate that I fostered for years as an inside plant.

Reply to
Boron Elgar

Pomegranate, mango, papaya, and avocado grow fairly well here. But, alas, we live on a 6500 square foot property with a 1960 square foot house, sidewalks, driveways, and neighbors on both sides not ten feet from our home. I guess it is for the best, in our twenties through the thirties we lived on ten acres and were always busy. Other homes here in the US had maybe 12 to 14,000 square feet but we have to remember this is the outskirts of Houston, TX. I finally figured it out that our subdivision, and a few others, are built on a farm that I hunted deer on back in the mid-sixties. Saw less deer here back then than I have seen in one week now. Weird! We ain't in our twenties anymore, not even in our sixties anymore. It beats looking up at dirt.

Reply to
George Shirley

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