Oh, no! The Bloody Butchers have Flowers!

[thistlebloom]

Very nice Steve. My dad always grew a lot of orange tomatoes and I really like them. But you're right about the color. It's a pretty tomato tho'! All of my carefully chosen , north loving early varieties have tomatoes, but nothing even close to showing color. If this heatwave continues it's possible that I might actually be eating my own tomatoes this year!

 

[digitS']

Push came to shove . . . and an attempt is being made at hybridizing .

One problem, the Bloody Butchers no longer have fresh flowers. Yeah! There are plenty of dried up things and both ripe and green fruit but no flowers that have not yet opened. THAT is when you are supposed to be messing with them for hybridizing. And, time is of the essence!

It may now not be possible for a flower to develop into ripe fruit. I have procrastinated until the moment where carrying the pots into the greenhouse to dodge a frost may be necessary! Not that any frost seems close. It may be 90f again tomorrow! THAT may be the problem with the dried up flowers! However, a tomato needs a little over 50 days to develop and we don't have that before the average date of 1st frost! I don't think it will be a problem because the pots are portable but I really have waited as long as I reasonably could.

Out I went with the scissors! One is supposed to use tweezers and after I'd done a half dozen flowers on the 1 "mother" plant (Kimberley), I realized that I just might have been able to do the job with tweezers! I just thought that a tiny pair of scissors might work better in my big, ol' digitS'! Now, I'm not sure if I have removed enuf of the anthers, if taking so much of the calyx was a bad thing, and whether I've damaged the ovaries :/. Tomorrow, I will attempt to collect some pollen from the Buisson flowers and move them to my "emasculated" Kimberley flowers. The Bloody Butcher will have to wait - maybe, until 2014.

I've little doubt that I will have lots of Kimberley seedlings next year hoping that there is a regular-leaf youngster from a Buisson daddy! Then what? This "stabilizing" of a cross may be a bit complicated, too!

Steve

 

[bj taylor]

good grief steve! what complexity. people like you amaze me w/your patient attention to detail resulting in amazing things. that name still cracks me up "bloody butchers"

 

[digitS']

Proof I'm not a very good container plant gardener.

Here are ripe fruit from the 3 plants (none should have the cross-pollinated seed in them):

left to right, Buisson, Bloody Butcher & Kimberley

The Buisson is usually a good 4 ounces with many at 5 ounces in my open garden. This one is maybe 3 oz and the biggest on the plant. That Bloody Butcher is unreasonably small - must be about 1 oz, they are usually twice that size or larger. The Kimberley that I grew once before had 5 oz fruit! I think something was wrong with the seed. It is supposed to be a 2 to 3 oz tomato and this one might be that big. The Kimberley seed from a couple years ago was from a difference source than this one. Anyway, at least I have kept the plants alive thru the year .

There are some tiny green fruit developing from the blossoms that I tried to move pollen to. I wonder if there's any chance . . . The one I'm most sure I got pollen on seems to be developing (hasn't fallen off yet :/). A flower I'm less confident of has a pea-size fruit! I guess I won't know until I grow some seedlings and see if I've got any regular-leaf plants from this potato-leaf Kimberley.

Here is what Tatiana says about the Kimberley heritage: "Developed in the mid-1980's by John de Rocque of Kimberley, BC, Canada, supposedly from a Siberia x Tiny Tim cross, selected for earliness, hardiness, and quality. It has not been confirmed that Siberia and Tiny Tim were the real parents of Kimberly, and genetically it does not make much sense, two regular leaf and dwarf/determinate varieties are unlikely to produce a potato leaf indeterminate."

You see? That little tomato is a mystery in and of itself!

Steve

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i think the containers may be why you're sizes are smaller. i had that happen with a few varieties that were in containers probably too small for their best growth. i had 3 different versions of Roma in containers and all 3 did miserably for me. i had one Roma plant volunteer to grow in my garlic patch and i left it to grow on it's own. that one plant did very well for me and i have saved seeds for next year's garden. i saved seeds from all the other varieties that did well for me in containers, but next year i think i will get the 5 gallon buckets to keep everything uniform that they are growing in.

 

[digitS']

. . . in containers probably too small for their best growth. . .

That's it, Chickie'sMoma. Or, it is a big part of them being small.

The plants all tend to be small plants in my garden but the pots are just too little for them. I'm not sure but they are smaller than my 3-gallon garden buckets.

I used good, store-bought potting soil because I knew that I'd have trouble meeting their water needs. No, this isn't how I'd prefer to grow tomatoes but these are the only 3 in containers and the only tomato plants here at home. Shoot! I have learned something about this hybridizing process! You need flowers at just the right stage of development. A day late is a problem, as is a day early . . . Maybe I should have carried the plants around with me in the pickup . . .

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Steve, I love those white beans! They are so pretty. What kind are they?

Mary

 

[digitS']

Those are Soldier Beans, Mary!

They must have right at 20 feet of one 40' row. I may have a few more to pick but they amount to just about double what the Jacob's Cattle Beans have produced in the other half of the row.

I'll make sure of the feet and weigh the beans once the 3 or 4 pickings have dried and been shelled .

Steve

 

[digitS']

Well it has been over 50 days, that is kind of a rule of thumb for bud-to-ripe fruit for tomatoes. Mother plant still hasn't ripened those fruits!

This is a likely response to abuse. Not only a season of living with Steve's "container care" but leaving the plant thru the 1st light frost in September. I had it in before any 28f could kill it in October but still . . .

I seem to notice changes in color as fruit moves towards ripening. First, a "breaking" into dark & light green. Then, an overall lightening. Then, a change to red. There hasn't been anything beyond the two-tone green yet.

Carol Deppe in "Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties" says: "There is an extensive hybrid seed industry for tomatoes, even though they don't display inbreeding depression and thus there is no special biological advantage to the hybrids."

I suppose this takes away one of the good reasons for my attempt but I am still hoping. Good thing I didn't read Deppe first .

Steve

 

[digitS']

Isn't this something??!

Is it now 80 days?

Down in the teens by morning! I've covered the bok choy babies (& harvested quite a few of the adolescents ) in the greenhouse but I'm not messing with that Kimberley tomato plant any longer. There were originally 6 fruits that might have cross-pollinated seeds. I knocked 1 off inadvertently and know there is one more out there but the light was bad. Besides, I am only "partially confident" in the one the Hersey Girl is holding !

I tried to do the right thing with all of the flowers but I only had a good supply of pollen for that Hersey Girl fruit :/.

And . . . they aren't ripe !!! Whatever is it with that?! Man, I'm dead set against ever moving a tomato plant in at the 1st frost again! The plant must have been damaged by the cold temperatures and just went on a slow downhill slide. There isn't 1 healthy leaf on that plant now. Only the stem & branches are green in there. By tomorrow, they will be black.

I'll be leaving the fruit here in the south window awhile. Heaven knows, they won't take up much room! At some point, I will rescue whatever seed might be in them and save it for the spring. Maybe, I can get it to sprout; and, MAYBE there will be a seedling from a Buisson daddy .

Steve