Hello from Germany!
Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 2:17 pm
Many of you may already know me from the "other" forum... But I've chosen another user name - it had to be a Latin one again, lol!
For those of you who don't know me: I'm a retired teacher for Latin and history, I love history and languages, travelling (either in south-east Asia or Egypt) and of course my family, especially my grand-kids (2 boys and 2 girls). The boys live quite close to me, only 3-4 minutes by feet and I've already "infected" them with the tomato virus.
My own tomato-career started many years ago, when by fluke I stumbled about the "Egg from Phuket" on the net. I could not believe it: I had been on Phuket island so many times without getting to know it there. I first thought of a gemstone, then found out that it was a tomato and I HAD to have it! Again the net and I found a seller who did not only offer this variety, but lots of other tomato seeds also - I started with 34 varieties... and I became greedy and had to have even more. I found an American seller (banned from Tville since a long time and this time with good reasons imo) who offered a bunch of varieties, but could not answer my questions or was not in the mood to do so. But he told me to join Tville where I would find the infos I wanted. So I joined. Other forums followed, some are dead now or almost dying, one is still active.
Usually I have about 120 - 130 different varieties in my garden, all either in containers or hanging baskets/small pots. But the last 2 years were very disappointing, due to the incredible heat we had here in Germany. The crop was rather poor, the biggies even refused to produce blossoms (in the meantime I know that there is special hormone that prevents the plants from producing blossoms when the temps are too high several days/weeks in a row), only most of the cherries did rather well. The smaller they were, the better they performed. This year, I've decided to mainly grow varieties that have done fine in the past, hoping it will NOT be that hot again. The big challenge will be to germinate these old varieties, "sed dum spiro, spero"...
One last addition: I want to reduce the number of varieties significantly, but I suppose, I'll fail - as always...
PS: Many thanks to all members who invited me to come over!
For those of you who don't know me: I'm a retired teacher for Latin and history, I love history and languages, travelling (either in south-east Asia or Egypt) and of course my family, especially my grand-kids (2 boys and 2 girls). The boys live quite close to me, only 3-4 minutes by feet and I've already "infected" them with the tomato virus.
My own tomato-career started many years ago, when by fluke I stumbled about the "Egg from Phuket" on the net. I could not believe it: I had been on Phuket island so many times without getting to know it there. I first thought of a gemstone, then found out that it was a tomato and I HAD to have it! Again the net and I found a seller who did not only offer this variety, but lots of other tomato seeds also - I started with 34 varieties... and I became greedy and had to have even more. I found an American seller (banned from Tville since a long time and this time with good reasons imo) who offered a bunch of varieties, but could not answer my questions or was not in the mood to do so. But he told me to join Tville where I would find the infos I wanted. So I joined. Other forums followed, some are dead now or almost dying, one is still active.
Usually I have about 120 - 130 different varieties in my garden, all either in containers or hanging baskets/small pots. But the last 2 years were very disappointing, due to the incredible heat we had here in Germany. The crop was rather poor, the biggies even refused to produce blossoms (in the meantime I know that there is special hormone that prevents the plants from producing blossoms when the temps are too high several days/weeks in a row), only most of the cherries did rather well. The smaller they were, the better they performed. This year, I've decided to mainly grow varieties that have done fine in the past, hoping it will NOT be that hot again. The big challenge will be to germinate these old varieties, "sed dum spiro, spero"...
One last addition: I want to reduce the number of varieties significantly, but I suppose, I'll fail - as always...
PS: Many thanks to all members who invited me to come over!
Hello,