Propagating the big orange tomato

November 4, 2015 - Collecting the seeds

I had gone to the store to buy a few vegetables in an attempt to propagate them. One of my most important purchases was two large round very orange tomatoes. One of them we ate and the other we mutilated in an attempt to collect the seeds. I say "mutilated" because there was so much flesh and so little seed, that getting all the seeds out was no easy chore. Every time I made a cut expecting to find a seed sac I found nothing but flesh. Needless to say, there wasn't much left intact by the time we were done.

We rinsed off the seeds we gathered, using a large fine metal strainer and them put them in a jar of water to soak and ferment. We put the jar up on a high shelf just as we had done in the Green Tomato Project.

November 6, 2015 - Germinating seeds in a paper towel

 

My youngest daughter, Samantha (Sammi), and I took down the jar, emptied it and rinsed off the seeds once again. I folded a paper towel in half and then in thirds. I showed her how I wanted the seeds placed on the paper towel and let her and her friend Essel have at it.  They made a bit of a mess of things, as four year olds will do, but in the end they got a lot more on the towel than I asked. I told them good job and send them off to play with their toys while I did the rest neatly.

I started off with dry paper towels, but quickly realized it was easier to wet the towel some because the seeds stuck to the wet paper towel a bit better. I decided that three rows of five seeds would work well and that is what I tried to stick to. There were so many seeds that I ended up doing it something close to ten times. Anyway, once I completed fifteen I soaked the paper towel and placed it inside a plastic sandwich bag. We didn't have any resealable bags, so I made do with what I had. I realized the idea was to maintain the moisture inside the bag, so I folded the bag over on itself to form a crease.

I placed the bags in a clear plastic container, sealed the top and put it on top of the refrigerator.

November 22, 2015 - Planting the seedlings...or....maybe not.

 

The first thing I want to say is that I messed up. I left the seedlings in those towels and bags WAY too long. I realized that when we started opening them today.

When we first pulled the bags out of the plastic container you could see the leaves and all the sprouts and it looked like a huge success.  You can even hear me saying that in the video.  Then came the point where we actually took the paper towels out of the bags and opened them up. That's when I realized that I had definitely screwed the pooch as they say. It's amazing how many of them sprouted, but then rotted away from sitting inside that wet environment for so long.  I'd say we had well over a 95% germination rate, but we lost 85% of the ones that were still viable and didn't rot away.

After we got the tomato seedlings unwrapped we decided to open the pepper seedlings we had also done. However, that will be a totally separate article because it is a different project.  I mention this because it is important when explaining what ultimately happened to the tomato seedlings.

Basically, what happened was I decided to plant the pepper seedlings first because there were so many of them. Yes. Looking back on it, I now realize how bass ackwards that logic was. What happened was as I was planting the pepper seedlings the rest of those and the tomato seedlings started to dry out. So, I misted them with my spray bottle to keep them alive. Yeah. Well, that didn't work out too well. By the time I finished with the peppers, all but one of the tomatoes had died and that lone survivor was pretty pathetic looking. I did plant it because, well, I like to experiment. If it grows, then great. If not...no harm, no foul.

November 23, 2015 - Reboot!

 

I had to run some errands today. I pay my rent by making a bank deposit and since there is a grocery store nearby, I decided to pick up a few things we need for the house. I always take a stroll through the produce section and spotted red plums. Now, I love plums and they are a very rare find in the Philippines. Of course, that means they are also super expensive, so I didn't buy any. A little further along I spotted the tomatoes. Those were on my list, so I looked through what was there and picked out the best looking ones in the bunch. One of them is another fat orange tomato, although, not nearly as big as the last one. Well, looking at it again, it is darker than the last one, so I guess it is more red than orange.  Anyway, look check out the Big Red Tomato project and the peppers, as well.