I direct sowed tomatoes and tomatillos now a few days ago (24.5). Tomatoes are mostly crosses I made with last year’s direct-sown F2s or F1s that I recrossed last year. So there is quite a variety of varieties in the crosses. I just sowed all or a big portion (if there was plenty) of seeds from the cross to an area that can hold 2 plants. The plan is to recross them mostly with wilds or other crosses that have wild in them.
Tomatillos are from last year’s varieties that were grown mixed so to my understanding they are F1s, although I’m not sure how staple any variety of tomatillo actually is. So possibly there is some variety beyond all the possible F1 combinations. I sowed one patch from each variety I saved seeds from so that there is at least something from each variety this year. The real fun is going to start next year when I make a big mix and start to separate based on colour and other traits. This year I’m direct sowing mostly because I have a limited space for transplants and tomatillos seem to get upset so easily in pots. Based on how well ground cherries grow direct seeded, I estimated that growing transplants wouldn’t help them much.
Tomatillos in my climate reliably reseed themselves. Therefore I expect them to thrive when direct seeded. They have more frost tolerance than tomatoes.
Oh they reseeded themselves alright. Unfortunately my plot is tilled and they are sporadically everywhere where they should not be. I even culled them from where I sowed tomatillos so that they don’t skew current sowing as they are already well underway. Might also be from a variety that spoiled/dropped more easily as I harvested all I could. I did think that I might chuck some fruits to part of the area that has not been rented for years and let them go feral with the weeds. That is if there already isn’t some.
Another weeding and some culling on tomatoes. Not much, just the ones that were clearly behind, had damage or looked more stressed for water than others. They are doing surprisingly good despite it being quite dry. There has been just over 20mm of rain after end of may, but ground being so dry to start with it has mostly gone deep. First 5cm is just dust. After that it’s dark coloured, but not a lot of moisture for seedlings that are just trying to root. Some seedlings are despite of this very bright green. Not sure if those that have some last years direct sown in them doing better. All but a few of the crosses have given some seedlings.
Some outliers are starting to emerge. Last week has been fairly cool with the highest temp at 19C (66F) although mainly highs have been at or just over 15C (59F) and nights around 5C (41F) at ground level with some nights just barely above freezing. Still some tomatoes look like they don’t mind. It has finally rained a bit, enough to keep them going for now, but not enough for long term. Now they are starting to get to a point where growth will explode, especially when after tomorrow highs are going to be at or above 20C (68F) and nights a bit warmer at least for a some time.
Now they are really getting going. Weather has been quite perfect for them with highs between 20-26C (68-80F) and nighs also slowly warming up a bit. Even got some rain. Tomatillos I had not had the time to thin in time and they were a bit crowded. pictured is before and after. Now they have little more space for a few more days.
We have buds! Both tomatoes and tomatillos are starting to show buds. Good time to do thinning. Those that show buds first make it through to the next round and then those that open first make it to the finals. Couldn’t come up with a better selection criteria. Later will (or nature will) make some selection.
Getting closer to final selection. Tomatoes start to have clearly visible trusses and the first look like they might open flowers soon. Tomatillos have first flowers open. Anything that is clearly behind it’s neighbors get’s culled. Added hay mulch to conserve water. Only watered slightly once after sowing and water stress shows in some tomatoes. Not sure if I’ll water tomorrow. Doesn’t look that we’ll get much rain, but possibly some. Might wait until I have done final selections, if it still is dry then.
Interesting type that shows in some plants. It’s useful here to have as many flowers open as soon as possible, but remains to be seen how well that actually works. probably needs support which I try to eliminate in the long term. At least it’s fast which is enough at this stage.
Only one plant of this type. Sideshoots came very early and the flowers on those aren’t much behind the main stalks. This would be closer to ideal type. Remains to be seen if it’s actually genetic trait and not just some freak of nature.
Tomatillos at this stage don’t show any special traits. Leaving the ones that flower first, even if the one not flowering looks strong or little stronger.
They will select themselves also. In my case it would slow down the progress just enough that they would not be as ripe as they could be. Also trying to eliminate those that favour (too) big plants before starting to flower.
First flowers open in tomatoes also. Not surprisingly first is pimpinellifolium cross. First flower is exactly on the same day as last year. Last year on the other hand I sowed them 9 days earlier and they had cloth and black plastic to help. Last year start of the season was cooler, but with all the help it probably evens out. This year it helps that I have so many different crosses. This is already quite close to the speed I’m looking for. June would be ideal, but it might be hard to push it there without playing with the frosts too much. Already with this speed 50 day ripening cycle gives ripe fruits at the end of august. There isn’t a lot of time to ripen unless the flowering has been really condensed.
A separate trial. Last year LB spoiled a lot of the late fruits and I didn’t wan’t to completely waste seeds from F1s, F2s, wilding panamorous and exserted orange so I made a fall sowing, sort of. Not many came up after dry spring, but better this way. I was thinking I might have to make some serious thinning. Now I have weeded out only a few late emergers and have about 20 which just enough for the space. First are starting to flower, but most are still behind. Should be in time to make some seeds at least.
Quite a growth in tomatoes and tomatillos in the last 2 weeks. I have been making quite a lot of crosses with tomatoes, also to the direct sown. Some labels are visible, some are hidden in the bush. I’m crossing domestic or mostly domestic crosses like those with wilding panamorous with pimpinellifolium or cheesmaniea. Some of the pimpinellifolium and cheesmaniea crosses that I already had I’m crossing with each other (so they will be 50% domestic/25% pimpinellifolium/ 25% cheesmaniea). I’ll do same with this years half wild crosses and eventually will cross that line with half habrochaites (which will have some pimpinellifolium and cheesmaniea as well).
One wilding panamorous cross had quite a flower. Also little protruding stigma even if it’s not quite exserted. Will easily crosspollinate. This kinda flower seems to be also more staple and not so hard to find. Size is quite spectacular and it’s not even misformed.
Haven’t paid much attention to tomatillos since I made the last selections some time ago. Bumblebees are doing their job and there is nothing I could do. This year I’m not even trying to support them or control more than cutting those that try to invade neighbours plot. In any case it’s alreaydy almost out of bonds. Might need to do some final weeding when it is still possible . Later tomatillos will keep them at bay.
Tomatoes are growing and making fruits, but starting to be affected by LB. I have been removing infected leaves and lower leaves in general to lower infection pressure and get better airflow. Today I removed some plants that had too many infected leaves. Couple of them had quite good yield potential and if they have viable seeds I’ll save them. They flowered at most a month ago and to have viable seeds they would need to have really fast ripening. Another plant I’ll discard because it didn’t have many fruits developed. Some of the first to flower should start to have viable seeds and what I’m now waiting is for the crosses I made to get mature enough. One cross I made on the 15.7 had infected fruit and when I checked it did not have viable looking seeds. Probably would have needed week or two depending on type. Some of the last crosses I made around 20.7 so I’ll need to give them until late this month at least to have ripe seeds. Taking it day by day. If something fails I’ll take it as natural selection even if I liked to have them all have the chance to ripen.
LB had wreaked havoc on tomatoes in the last 24h, but at least tomatillos are care free. Not that I could access them in any case. They are almost as tall as I’m and there are lots of fruits developing somewhere under the foliage.
First tomatoes are starting to ripen, a few days earlier than I thought. It looks like some might have done so because of the stress caused by defoliating or the blight. Partially it might be also that this ripening period is slightly warmer than those from transplants. LB has done damage on leaves and I have lost many fruits, but could be worse. Drier period came right at the right time. Some of the last crosses still need some time to ripen seeds and I’m also making sure that uncrossed fruits get time to fully develop seeds rather than trying to save fruits to try and ripen indoors for eating. If I loose some extra it’s just a selection pressure that hopefully will slowly make the population more resilient.
4 crosses (at least 2 plants each cross) seem to tolerate LB very well. No significant damage on the leaves and only a few fruits that have spoiled on all of the individuals of these crosses. They might not extremely LB tolerant, but every little helps to slow down the spread. It’s curios how the tolerance has been inherited as none had ida gold (which is only one that I have grown that looks to tolerate LB) and ol´nly one had the grinch (which does not get it in leaves, but fruits get easily spoiled). There were some varieties that repeated in the parentage so clearly it’s not a coincidence. But I can’t figure how all of the same crosses look to tolrate to the same degree if they are more tolerant than any of their parents? Or only thing that would make sense to me is that they have inherited 2 distinct dominant traits against LB that together give stronger resistance. I assume that the strongest LB tolerant traits are resessive. Ida gold had at least one natural cross that looks like it’s not LB tolerant.
Maybe shouldn’t be surprised to find ripe tomatillos now that many tomatoes have ripened, but didn’t know what to expect after only one years experience. This one is ripe week under 2 months from flowering. Tried to find more, but couldn’t find many yet. Ripe to use yes, but with dry husks no. This on was from queen of malinalco and also ripened yellow, but had a more round form. There is a great variety even within those sown from same seeds. At this point I’m not making that much selection. Some had made more fruits than others, but it’s quite hard to make sense of the mess. I’ll collect all fruits sometime early next month probably and select those that are the most ready looking for seeds. That way the mix will be skewed towards fastest and most productive.
. Later tomatillos will keep them at bay.
