welcome to my little suburban oasis, filled with flowers,fruit trees and vegetables

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Two experiments

Overwintering tomatoes


Yes, I know it just looks like any old tomato plant but it's actually a cutting, or rather the top, of an old plant that was being thrown in the council recycling bin.
In summer, these cuttings strike easily to give extra plants, generally cropping later than their big brothers. What I'm trying to do here is see if I can keep it alive over winter in the house and maybe even get some fruit from it.
Who knows, it might work.

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Grow Your Own



A month or so ago I was the very fortunate recipient of some quinces through Freecycle. I haven't used them all up yet but I'm thinking long-term and don't expect quinces to be given away every year.
I've grown apple trees from pips and eventually they flower and fruit - our best cropping tree is a 25 year old pippin - and we even have self set apple trees growing in the garden, probably from pips in the compost. So, I'm hoping that I can grow some quinces from seed. This first batch I'll keep inside and see if any grow. If there's no signs of growth, then the pips from the remaining quinces will go outside, probably in the greenhouse, for a little chilling over winter and hoprfully some growth in spring.

3 comments:

  1. We never over-winter our tomato plants. They're usually cut down by now and put on the compost but this year they took so long to ripen than the tomatoes are still there and slowly ripening, a few a day. The greenhouse is also full of pelergoniums and fushias.

    I do admire you having the patience to grown apple trees from pips. Good luck with the quince.

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  2. we save tomtao seeds but I have never over wintered a tomtaoe plant. My blog was attacked and I have had to start a new one, I lost all my blog list and followers I'm not sure if you follow me there but I would love to have you visit, my profile now goes to the new blog,, I have missed some of your posts, I'll catch up now!!

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  3. We stopped putting dead tomatoes on our home compost heap in an attempt to cut down on blight. something seems to have worked this year - no problems till late September.
    I've grown several apple trees from pips over the years - I had 3 growing in parents' garden before I left home. Only one, offspring of Golden Delicious, is left now but still fruiting. They take maybe 10 years to fruit so it needs patience!

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