The Garden of Woz...

[GoDawgs]

Ah! Fresh tomatoes! I have tomato envy.

[bower]

Always a great day when the first ripe tomatoes of the season appear!

[Whwoz]

Yes good to get them, more coming along too

[Whwoz]

Zucchini Gold Rush x Jade Numbat

Some pictures

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These have a pale stripe to them, Taste delicious but have one draw back, lack of male flowers so are not pollinated fully, with flower ends rotting slightly as a result

[GoDawgs]

Boy, those are really pretty, Woz. Beautiful color to them. And the plant itself is interesting. A nice rounded bush habit and not sprawling like some zukes. Deeply divided leaves with long serrated fingers. Nice!

Since there aren't enough guys for the gals, you might have to play matchmaker.

[Whwoz]

Yes Godawgs, have started to play match maker. The leaves come from the Jade Numbat, which is a stabilised version of a striped hybrid from the USA. Work was done as a collaboration between two then HG members, one here, one there.

Will shortly be tagging several fruit for seed.

[PlainJane]

Nice harvest!
You’re helping put the rest of us into a fever of anticipation.

[Sue_CT]

Nice! Due to squash vine borers, healthy plants and harvests like that are but a dream.

[Whwoz]

Nice! Due to squash vine borers, healthy plants and harvests like that are but a dream.

Fortunately we don't have those borers here and hear/read far too much about them to want some sent over....

[Whwoz]

Sweet Potatoes

Here Down Under we have a limited range of sweet Potatoes available to us to buy and they are generally sold by skin colour in the shops, eg orange, white, red or purple. Even worse is the situation if you want to grow them at home, sometimes you may get lucky and find a few freshly struck slips in the big green sheds we have, very few retailers list them on line and there is the odd ebay or equivlant retailer that sells them. Generally they are sold by colour without varietal names. They are not necessarily adapted to growing and root formation in Victoria, where I live, with our commercial production of sweets being focused in Northern NSW and SE Qld.

As such, a small group of 4 or 5 Victorian growers are coordinating our efforts to breed SP's more suited to our conditions through the OSSI forum. I will also add my personal attempts here.

The biggest problem that I personally have faced is actually getting plants to flower, to date ZERO SP flowers even though the related I. aquatica flowers well for me. It also sets seed.

The clones that I have available this year are a bit more varied that to the efforts of some of the others in the group.

SP - Orange -B.JPG

SP Purple B.JPG

SP-PSWF - B.JPG

SP-Purple-S1.JPG

SP-Okinawa -s1.JPG

SP-Red Garnet_S1.JPG

SP-Kumera-S1.JPG

SP-Wanmun - S1.JPG

SP-Blackie-S1.JPG

SP- The Northern Star - S1.JPG

SP- American White_S1.JPG

Sp-Japanese SP - S1.JPG

SP-Solomon-S1.JPG

Blackie is an ornamental variety, included to increase the likelihood of successful cross-pollination and hopefully produce seedlings that are more florific than the current crop of edibles are. Buds are just starting to form on it.

SP flower buds - Blackie.jpg

In an attempt to get the locally available orange/orange SP to flower, and to keep the vines out of the tomatoes, I have put up a trellis on one side. I will be expanding this as required

SP trellis.JPG

B = Bunnings, local big green shed or big box store
S1 - OSSI member Steve1

[Whwoz]

The last of the lilums to flower is "Playtime"

Playtime.JPG

[GoDawgs]

Woz, I'm not familiar with your climate. Is your season not long enough and/or too cool to grow SP's?

I just did some poking around on the internet and found something. You kind of have to reverse what they're suggesting to get better tubers:

"If the energy of the plant is going to flower growth and production, then other areas, like the tubers, will suffer. It is important to have a fertilizer that is high in potash in order to encourage tuber or root growth. A fertilizer that is high in nitrogen will promote the growth of foliage and keep the leaves full of chlorophyll. If flowers are continually occurring, revisit the type of fertilizer that you are feeding your plants and confirm that it is high in potassium (K of N-P-K). If all is well with the fertilizer, then it just has to do with temperatures and sunlight. Simply remove the flowers to maximize tuber growth." https://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/outdo ... ce-flowers

You want the flowers right now, not necessarily the tubers, yes? Maybe high N in the fert and low K would stimulate flowers? Just a thought.

Have you tried growing slips from some of the SP's sold in groceries?

[Whwoz]

GoDawgs,

Our season is long enough and warm enough to grow SP and have them produce tubers mostly, one or two varieties appear to be long season growers and have not formed tubers when frost has been imminent when I have grown them before. I guess what we are really out to do is mix up the genetics of what is out there to produce something that will not only form tubers reliably, but produce a better class of tuber also. Beauregard forms 90% of the Australian crop according to the Australian Sweet Potato Growers Industry website and would be the orange SP I get from Bunnings. The other varieties available to us in shops, Northern Star, WSPF (White Skin Purple Flesh) and occasionally Kestral are not of the quality of Beauregard and take longer to make tubers. Have not yet sprouted slips from shop bought SP's, but they would be what I have been able to get as potted slips.

Thanks for the link, about to check it out now

[Whwoz]

The Garlic this year was a bit hit and miss, I think mainly due to the soil it was planted into. Local soil needs a lot of work before it will be acceptable to garlic, so into the sand it goes from now on. Some globes were normal size, a lot were small and with the weird weather and being a little bit out the way I left most of it in the ground a bit long and do not have the wrappers that should be on it. The later varieties, the Marbled Stripe groups, have probably done best.

One bonus of this is that I had left some plants in the ground deliberately, hopefully to get some bulbils. Well I got them plus there are flowers (yes flowers without manipulation) on five varieties.
These varieties are
Marbled Blush
Music
Spanish Rojo
Rojo de Castro and the un-named
Mild 180-4
Photos to follow

[Whwoz]

Tomatoes planted this year

Adelaide Black
Adelaide Green
Bloody Butcher
Blue Ambrosia
Blueberries
Blush ?
Brads Atomic Heart
Brads Black Heart
Captain Lucky
Carbon
Caro Rich
Chang Li Cherry
Cherry Brownies
Chocolate Stripes
Costuloto genovese "Sal Valente"
Dana's Dusky rose
Dr Wyches Yellow
Duncans Dutch pear
Duncans Egg
Dwarf Low Acid Yellow
Garrote Bicolor
Giant Belgium
Gold Mini Roma
Golden Roma
Green Gables
Green Sausage
Heidi
Ivory Pear
June Bug F2
KARMA Peach
KARMA Pink
KARMA Purple
KARMA Purple Multiflora
King of Siberia
La Case de Apuila
Lithium Sunset
Madagascar
Mandarina
MS Definitely mixed up, Yellow pear
Old Ivory egg
Pink Thai Egg
Polaris
Red Cherry Roma
Reinhardt Kraft’s GWR Heart
Robledillo de la jara
Rosa Melillero
Taiga
True Colours
USDA 97L97
Verde de Las landes
Wes
Worlds Largest
Yellow Pear
Yellow Striped Roman
Zena's Gift
100
Bombeta
Ibiza Blanca
Japanese Black Triffle
Mat-Su Express
Midnight Sun
Regina red Micro
"Trout Cod"

It appears that I some how labelled some Yellow Pears as MS, suspect I know when it happened. Blue Ambrosia is probably not true, came from seed kept in Tasmania from round cherries with a bit of Antho on them, now more like a pointy little roma with a lot of antho present. The trout Cods are out of the Beauty Line from the Dwarf project, very compact plants showing some interesting traits. The three ramallets , 100, Bombeta and Ibiza Blanca all have fruit on them. Most Varieties are carrying isolation bags, must get the last of them on.

[GoDawgs]

63 tomatoes, assuming one of each. You're going to be one busy gardener especially if you're growing other edibles too!

[Nan6b]

What is the Ivory Pear like, tastewise?

[Whwoz]

More than one of some, around 80 - 90, including 1 x bombeta, 3 x 100 and 4 of the Ibiza Blanca. "Trout Cod" is a grow out, 7 or 8 plants in total, a couple of the Yellow Roma, some of KarenO's , June Bug F2 x 2 and three of the Dwarf Low Acid Yellows.

Nan, no ripe Ivory Pears as of yet, will post taste report.

[Whwoz]

Photos of some of the Garlic Heads, showing purple bulbils and the flowers sticking out amongst them

Marbled Blush.JPG

Mild 180-4.JPG

Spanish Rojo.JPG

Photos not the greatest, my apologies but light where I have them at the moment is definitely not good for photos. They are tied up in bunches or where the covers have rotted away hung in net bags suspended from mesh inside a room that I have built inside the shed for storage of vegies like squash and garlic. Will also be using this area for drying tomato seed. Small bar fridge under bench for seed storage. Will attempt to take better photos after the lighting gets sorted out Friday.

[Whwoz]

Question for those who grow on the garlic bulbils, do you take the opportunity to grow them in pots or do you just plant straight into soil? Those that I planted in pots last year did not make a lot of top, probably need to sort this out better but do not think I have a virus issue just yet anyway.