First Heirloom Tomato Seedlings

I can’t tell you how weird it feels to sow tomato seeds in December! These seedling will be for the high tunnel. My target for transplanting them into the ground is the beginning of February. The high tunnel is unheated, of course, so if any insanely cold weather comes after February, I’ll be out there with blankets and row cover to try to  keep them from freezing. However, I’m pretty confident the passive heating of the high tunnel will keep it toasty enough. It hasn’t even come close to freezing in there yet. The end result should be ripe tomatoes by mid April or possibly earlier! How awesome would that be? Here’s the list of varieties I have started. They are all heirlooms except for one, and I chose them based on taste and yield.

• Peron Sprayless- A variety I heard about via the Seed Saver’s Exchange forums. Everyone seemed pretty impressed by the yield and hardiness of this variety, so I gave it a shot.
• Brandywine OTW- released by Dr. Carolyn Male and Dr. Craig LeHoullier, A celebrated strain of the ever-popular Brandywine. Considered the best Brandywine by many, I have yet to taste it for myself.
• Stump of the World- I know very litte about this variety. Tomato Growers says it’s very productive, and the name is freakin awesome. So I’m giving it a shot.
• Rose de Berne- A very pretty, light colored tomato by all accounts.  Never tried this one before either.
• Russian 117- An heirloom oxheart variety. Gotta love oxhearts.
• Orange Russian 117- Same as above but with a beautiful bi-color red/orange pattern.
• Black Krim- For whatever reason, black tomatoes seem to do very well here. I grew this one last year and loved it’s vigor and tasty fruits, but honestly it wasnt a big seller at the market.
• Giant Belgium- Free packet that came with the order. No idea.
• Big Beef- We grew this variety at my friend Luther’s farm while I was apprenticing there this spring. It was very popular with customers. It is a hybrid however.

My goal is to save seeds from all these varieties (minus the hybrid).  I’ll be building screened in cages that will cover some of the plants along the row. I will have to hand pollinate those.

The First Seedlings in the High Tunnel

The first seedlings are starting to poke their heads out of the ground in the high tunnel!  I’ve also transplanted quite a few flats of stuff. Here’s a quick run-down of what’s there so far:

Arugula came up quick. Unfortunately I sowed the seeds way too heavily, a common failing of mine. I don’t think I ever really believe that seeds actually sprout ever, so I tend to go a little heavy handed. Years of experience have not lessened the surprise of, “Wow! They actually came up!” Oh well, arugula seed is cheap.

I sowed some chard in a 200-cell seedling tray about a billion years ago that I kinda forgot about (sort of…). Anyway, they looked pretty bad, crammed into 1in deep pots despite the fact they were a couple of months old, but I figured I’d transplant them anyway and see what happened. I watered them in with fish emulsion, and three or four days later they are actually looking quite a bit better. I had another flat or so of much younger and healthier chard that I planted behind it. So I have a full double row planted in chard.

No picture…I thought I had one…anyway, I bought a spicy Mesclun salad mix from Johnny’s seeds that includes baby lettuce, kale, radicchio, endive, arugula, and a billion other things. Tatsoi I think was in there too. I sowed this in a 4 foot wide bed around 20 feet long. I’ll sow another bed every two weeks for a continuous supply. I intend to pre-wash and bag them for sale at the market as a ready to go bagged salad. My friend Luther has told me he hasn’t had much success trying to grow mesclun, but didn’t get into particulars. Seems easy to me, right? Baby greens don’t live as long so less time for bad stuff to happen, right? We shall see, good friends. So far so good…

This is Bordeaux spinach. Germination was kinda low, despite the cold nights we’ve been having, which spinach seed generally likes. Bordeaux spinach is actually pretty awesome. The leaves are green (duh) with a vibrant red stem and veins. The leaves have a spearhead sort of shape to them. It tastes great, also.

And, of course, lettuce. I currently have four kinds of leaf lettuce growing in the tunnel. Flashy Black Trout (yes, that’s it’s name), Magenta, Sulu, and Red Rosie. All varieties I’ve grown with Luther on his farm, and all varieties I was impressed with. Sulu is pictured.

A few other thing have also come up. Mibuna, which is a mild mustard flavored green, and  a few varieties of chinese cabbage.

Here’s some of the rest of the to-be-transplanted veggies. There’s a few flats of lettuce, kale, tatsoi, mizuna, etc.