Fruit Set & Cuttings

What a difference a day makes, as the song goes. Well, maybe two days, but I was out tying these things on Wednesday and I'm certain these suckers weren't there then.



The suckers in question being FRUIT! Tomatoes, green and a little over an inch in diameter, growing on Gigant Pelina and Paul Robeson, two of the heartier looking plants so far in the Tomatosaurus Rex.



Good news, as was the roots I saw growing on the cuttings Julie gave me last weekend. Well, one of them was growing inch-plus long roots, a couple others were sprouting a bunch of shorter ones.



Bad news, Septoria seemed to have set in on all of them, and by the time I got done pulling diseased leaves, one of the cuttings had a leaf, singular, not leaves plural.



So we will see. I decided to go ahead and transplant them into starter mix and see what happens. I poked small holes in the Silo cups with an Exacto to allow for drainage, and put a bit of Tomato Tone and bone meal in each.



I also planted a half dozen zucchini seeds (also a gift from Julie) in other cups, and another half dozen or so in a border area in the yard by my driveway where I killed a bunch of weeds with roundup a couple weeks ago. At first I didn't think it looked like a promising area, but then I remembered how hard it is to kill anything that lives there, and figured what the hell.

Be interesting to compare, too, the ones started in Silo cups and transplanted to the ones basically buried in the yard and allowed to fend for themselves. Be funny if the latter plants did better.

Throw it in the ground and run, I've been told by Worley, so I'll try that theory. Either nothing will happen, or I'll have zucchini running out of my ears in a couple months.



My approach is this: set expectations low and you won't be disappointed. If I get a single edible zucchini from this dozen seed experiment, I will dance a little jig on the way to the wok with it. If I get a single Berkeley Tie Die tomato this year, from these cuttings or the ones I hope to scam tomorrow as a backup plan, I'll find something nice to say about the President.