Greenhouse seeds planted (2019)! My garden progress, 2019

On 25 June, the following tomatoes set fruit:

Black Beauty (the south plant)
Brandy Boy cross A, G, and F (F, which is a small plant, so far, compared to the other Brandy Boy crosses, set three fruits)
Galapagos Island
Jerusalem
Matina
Valley Girl F1

Also a wonderberry plant set fruit. The wonderberries could have set (and probably ripened) fruit quite a while ago, but I transplanted them very late.

One of the aforementioned volunteer muskmelons (which I believe was from Noir De Carmes) appears to have been pollinated by a distant Metki Dark Green Serpent melon last year. I'm curious as to the result. The fruit looks like MDGS, currently.

I gave the strawberry patch plants (sans epazote, which is next to it) some monopotassium phosphate.

By today, the following tomatoes set fruit:
• More Sausage tomato plants
• Palestinian

The Brandy Boy F10 tomato is catching up. It has bloomed and has a nice, big blossom. The F1 is still just a few inches tall (but growing).

One of the Black Dragon tomato cuttings in water grew roots by 29 June. This is the fastest I've ever seen a tomato root in water (granted, it had root nodules before I took the cutting). Here's a picture of them, today (more thab one of the Black Dragon tomato cuttings has roots, now):



They drank a lot of the water, too (and even rooted above the water line, before I refilled it).

The Matt's Wild Cherry cuttings (at least one of the two) set fruit (by today) after being taken as a cutting! That's a first.

[HASH]tomato [HASH]cutting

By 4 July, the following plants set fruit:

• Early Girl F1 (the seed-grown one; I believe it set two fruit)

Before (potentially significantly before) 4 July, the following plants set fruit:
• Charley's Pride melon (it's growing a number of them)
• Hearts of Gold melon
• Honeycomb F2 melon (one of the plants in the spot is apparently Honeycomb F2 x Torpeda, by the look of the fruit, how it's both long and patterned, although not as heavily as Torpeda)

Torpeda appears to be a cross, as the female flower does not appear to have long fruit (but the flower is unusual in some ways; so, maybe it's a fluke). I wonder what it's a cross with. Maybe it's Honeydew Orangeflesh. That's round, anyway.

On 4 July, I gave the northmost row of melons (as well as Ginger's Pride), and all the tomatoes in the eastern garden plot, except for one (the southwest-most Brandy Boy cross), as well as the in-ground peppers three handfuls of wood ash each (and a lesser amount of wood ash for the peppers in 10-gallon moving totes). We'll see if that's too much (giving plants nitrogen helps when they do get too much wood ash, however; I think it helps the plants use the calcium). I think three is not too much. The wood ash bucket is empty, now (we still have some in the wood stove, though).

Hearts of Gold had curling leaves (probably from the weather changes and drought). So, that's part of what inspired me to give the northmost melons wood ash (for the heat/drought-tolerance that wood ash assists with; the muskmelons further south had plenty of basalt rockdust and potassium/phosphorus last year and I'm seeing if it'll suffice for this year, too; so far, those ones look pretty nice). We'll see if the wood ash works as well as potassium sulfate and basalt rockdust. Hearts of Gold probably needs nitrogen, too, as the leaves don't have a sheen (leaves with plenty of nitrogen tend to have a sheen or be shiny and supple). Another reason for the wood ash is that I want larger fruit.

The aforementioned wood ash smelled a lot like zinc sulfate monohydrate. I think the wood ash was primarily from cedar.

For the most part, the tomatoes seem to have recovered from my caging them at less than ideal maturity for caging.

The following tomatoes set fruit by 8 July:
• Early Treat F1
• Snow Fairy
• Polish Linguisa (this set fruit a while ago)

The following muskmelons set fruit by today:
• Torpeda (it appears to be a turban melon; I didn't know those existed)
• Iroquois
• Honeycomb F2 (which was cross-pollinated by Torpeda and looks like Torpeda; this set fruit a while ago, and I may have mentioned it)
• Two or three of the volunteer plants (they're all planted in the same spot; one of them was cross-pollinated by Metki Dark Green Serpent; these set fruit a while ago, and I may have mentioned it)
• Charley's Pride (this set fruit a little while ago, and I may have already mentioned it; the fruits look really interesting, and it's setting lots of fruit)
• Hearts of Gold (this set fruit about the same time as Charley's Pride, give or take a couple days)

The peppers to have set fruit so far include at least these:
• Neapolitan (it set fruit a while ago; the first fruit to set is growing quite large compared to fruits last year)
• Chipotle
• Hungarian Yellow Wax

We set up hog panel trellises for most of the West India burr gherkins, as well as for the Huerfano Bliss honeydew melon and the Weeks NC Giant watermelon cross (the one without stars).

Black Beauty seems to have been cross-pollinated with a cherry tomato. I could be wrong, as they're not mature, yet. Sweetie is a likely candidate, but Sweet Orange Cherry and Ildi are possibilities (as are some slightly larger tomatoes). Galapagos Island, Sugar Lump, and Gold Nugget are more remote possibilities (they were far away).

Frosty F. House seems to have been cross-pollinated by Menehune. One of the Brandy Boy crosses does, too; however, it's still potato leaf (so, if true, it must be a rare recessive regular leaf trait that Menehune has; Menehune's leaves do look different from most regular leaf leaves). Anyway, I suspect that they're crosses because of the number of flowers on the plants (Menehune produces a lot), and because of the fruit shapes. Also, some of the blemishes (that's probably not the right word) on the particular Brandy Boy cross resemble those I saw on Menehune. I'm really curious to find out if I'm right, and if so, what these crosses will result in. Menehune is said to be a wild tomato.

Other potential father plants for Frosty F. House include the Brandy Boy cross (F1), Orange Minsk, and possibly a few others (but I don't recall any other multi-flora types with beefsteak shapes than Menehune). They probably only have about 70 flowers per truss, though (not 100+).

More Ozark Beauty seeds sprouted (in the same container). This is interesting since I added wood ash very recently (to help support the two newly sprouted seedlings); wood ash isn't something I had thought would promote germination (I thought maybe the opposite). It should be noted that I do pray for my plants, though (and I did pray for that specifically if it was expedient); so, whatever the cause, it's an answer to prayer. I'm excited to find out how true-to-type Ozark Beauty is (and what the seeds are like if they're not true-to-type). The other garden strawberries are flowering and/or fruiting now, too; so, I should be able to try more. I have goal to select for garden strawberries that sprout without cold-treatment (to develop new varieties that grow quite easily from seed, such as Fresca and Tresca).