Gardening Failures and Lessons Learned

A good gardener shares her failures, so here are my recent "learning opportunities":

#1. My solitary Primula auricula seedling germinated quite nicely, then promptly died in a limp heap atop a generous topping of vermiculite. I discussed this with BB, pre-eminent local garden sage, who pointed out that vermiculite retains water and that P. auricula does not like excessively damp conditions. Perlite would have been better.

Aha. Perlite purchased. New P. auricula seeds sown.

#2. Curry leaf tree cuttings also looked initially promising then succumbed to fungal fuzz. The root stimulating gel didn't have time to act in the face of aggressive fungus that attacked the stem in the glass of water. I suppose there wasn't much circulation around the cutting (I read that high humidity would help, so put it in a humidity dome). Hmmm.

Besides, I've noticed a few of the impatiens seedlings falling over despite the "No Damp" spray. I've re-installed the oscillating fan in the basement, which did wonders with previous year's plants.

Silene saxifraga - One of several seedlings destined for my new rock garden.

I'm speaking of the rock garden currently in my imagination, but hopefully to be constructed by RLM this spring. We recently stayed up late one night discussing the essential features of my rock garden and the exact definition of an "alpine" plant. I presented 3 fantastic books on the topic. RLM just wanted to look at pictures, without listening to "drainage needs" and "gritty topdressing".

Osteospermum sinuata "African Sun" -- they don't look like they need pinching yet.

Rogue compost worm - escapee from the tomato plant pot.

Micro Tom Miniature Tomato -- fully grown and nearly done producing fruit. Its fruits are getting smaller, nearly the size of a pea. There's not much juice or flavour, not suprisingly.

More seeds in ziploc bags -- my germination method of choice.

Having failed at these small gardening projects, I am even more determined to try again. I bought P. auricula seeds from a gentleman in England (on eBay) and those seeds went into soil (with LOTS of perlite) last night.

Micro Tom Tomatoes

It's December and I just ate my first indoor tomato. Just because it's December, I'll say it tasted great! I should have just started about a dozen of these tiny tomato plants, because they are the only ones that I haven't had to compost because they grew too large.

I bought the seeds online and it took about 3 months to go from seedling to fruiting plant. They truly are small, and the tomatoes are like small cherry tomatoes. If I had a bunch of plants, I might have had enough to make a salad. As it is, it's just fun to enjoy the novelty of tiny tomato plants in the basement. I'll save some seeds from one of these tomatoes so I can grow these again.

How to Pollinate a Tomato

The miniature tomato plants are growing some tiny tomatoes. Success! Well, I hope that the plants continue to make more little tomatoes, as I have not made any efforts to pollinate the flowers, as I have for the peppers. It is clear that I need to pollinate the peppers with my little paintbrush, or the stems die and fall off.

Micro Tom Tomato (left), Red Robin tomato (right):

However, I did some reading about pollinating tomatoes, because I noticed that the structure of the flower does not lend itself to any paintbrush-related activities. Was I ever suprised to hear that vibration is needed to pollinate tomatoes!

Apparently, the price and effort involved in applying vibrators to the flowers and/or plants is a major element in increasing the price of greenhouse tomatoes (greenhouses that don't have bumblebees, anyways). Well honey, where's the vibrator? We need to do some pollination. Yeah, and resident lawnmower man thought that my paintbrush activities were lewd! So RLM, how much do you appreciate fresh vegetables in the middle of winter?

A Micro Tom tomato:

In the meantime, the basement bar fridge has become home to several perennial seeds (and some sparkling peach juice) enjoying a season of continuous 4 degree Celsius weather. I can't recall what's in there, but those seeds all require cold stratification to germinate. Yes, perennials are generally more work than annuals, but they are worth the effort (or so we tell ourselves if we are "perennial snobs").

Micro Tom Tomatoes and Herbs

One of my "Micro Tom" miniature tomato plants produced a first flower today! How about that for garden blooms in the far north? Yeah, it's an indoor plant, but I'm still excited about this. These plants germinated in mid-September and hopefully I'll have some little tomatoes by Christmas. The plant with the flower is actually the bigger plant, and a bit leggy though it received alot of light. These plants are about the size of my hand and are starting to set fruit. Aren't they so cute?


Space is limited in the basement light garden, which explains why I'm not trying to grow melons and cucumbers down there. I still think I could do that, but they'd each take up a whole shelf (at the very least) and I want to experiment with a variety of plants.

Rosemary, transplanted from outside. I found this to be a slow-growing plant outside, but it's doing well inside. I'm looking forward to some nice slow-roasted rosemary potatoes...

Marigolds, flowering mightily in the basement. I've heard that marigolds keep bugs away from vegetables. So far, no bugs have infested the basement, which is good.

Lemongrass. Yep, still just looks like grass, but tastes so lemony!

Thanksgiving Bounty in the Basement

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians and to anyone else in the world who also happened to be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend! We had nice turkey dinner (those pre-stuffed Butterball turkeys are the bee's knees!) followed by a mellow afternoon. Kona, our furry canine was allowed to clean up the giblets and turkey skin, making her a happy dog!

Lettuce and tomato plants under grow lights in the basement:

I purposely deformed this "Heat Wave" chili pepper to fit under my basement grow lights. The resulting shape inspired me to take this photo of the "Semi-cascade style chili pepper". Ha!

It bears fruit too! I realize now that it was unnecessary to have three plants, with each having dozens of blossoms. Maybe I'll try drying the peppers. I don't know what I'd do with all of them.

"Top Girl" orange peppers, not yet to blooming stage:

This is the basement-dwelling group of my ever-expanding collection of Dendrobium nobile "Angel Smile" orchids. My plants keep producing baby plants, which I repot and then give away. On the right is the thriving lemongrass, which is destined for ethnic cooking in my kitchen.

The wedding marigolds in bloom! We got some marigold seedlings as a guest favour at my brother-in-law's wedding in June. They are doing pretty well alongside the pepper plants.

One of my "Micro Tom" miniature tomato plants: this one germinated mid-September and is less than 4 cm tall. I am also trying "Red Robin" miniature tomato plants. Hopefully, I'll have tomatoes in a few months. These ones are growing in 4 inch pots. I'm not sure if I'll need to repot them.

This goes to show that with six shop lights and some shelves, you can eat fresh greens throughout the winter! One of the things I like best about this is that there are no beetles eating your vegetables and no worms crawling out of your salad! It's a pest-free environment.

Miniature Tomato Plants

I have enjoyed the first three cherry tomatoes from my semi-determinate "Sugary" grape tomato plants outside and am already worrying about my tomato-related food security come winter time. Oh yes, there are the local grocery stores, but don't we all know that store-bought tomatoes are bland and not worth the money we pay for them?

I figure that I am going to try growing tomatoes indoors again. Last year, I grew one of those random seedlings from the indoor compost pile. It got about three feet tall and then turned a strange color and died suddenly, like some tomato flesh-eating-disease had overtaken it.

This is the plan: get a dwarf plant, choose a "determinate" variety (stops growing at a genetically predetermined size), and grow it under lights in the basement.

I was taken by this novelty tomato: "Micro Tom" 'World's smallest tomato variety,' developed by Drs., J.W. Scott and B.K. Harbaugh at the University of Florida. Grows 5 to 8 inches tall in a 4 inch pot bearing flavorful miniature tomatoes about the size of salad croutons. Plants are truly diminutive and wonderful for patios, windowsills or garden borders. Determinate. 85 days from seed.

A popular garden blogger in Cleveland, Ohio has pictures of Micro Tom in a container, but doesn't say what her yield was like. Other gardeners complain it has poor yield and taste. Micro Tom was released for home gardens in 1989 and since then, Dr. Scott has also produced Micro-Gold (1995), Micro-Gemma (1999), and Micro-Tina(1999). Micro-Tina is sweeter flavoured than Micro-Tom. Unfortunately, the newer types are not yet commercially available.

"Red Robin" is a bit bigger plant. I might try that one out as well and compare them. Does anybody have a favourite dwarf tomato for indoor growth under lights?