Tomato-Tomahto

And that’s it – they’re all in. All the tomato and pepper varieties I planned this year, with some few minimal changes (finalized list of those two is now listed here, the rest is still in a bit of flux until the seed goes in). I finalized 14 tomato varieties and five pepper varieties. That’s more tomatoes than I had originally planned for, but in my defence, several are true dwarf varieties (under 1 ft) and will be grown in smaller pots. Notably those being Andrina Dwarf, Dean’s Haley’s Rainbow, and Hardin’s Miniature. Orange Tree in theory is a dwarf, but there’s so little info available that I’m not 100% certain of that so it’ll go in my standard 5 gallon pot.

I’m very much looking forward to what these varieties do this year, several are brand new, and a few are extremely rare (and are also the last of my seed). I’ve been growing some old favourites the past few years, and it feels nice to branch out again and run some experimental growings.

I also got the dye plants that need early indoor sowings in the ground, those being black Hollyhock, Japanese Indigo (this year I’ll mainly just be growing for seed), Black Knight Scabiosa, two different sources of seed for Cempoalxochitl marigold (also known as African Marigold, or Tagetes erecta, despite the fact it’s native to Central America), and some Mexican Tarragon.

I have about a week off before the next round of seeds need to go in, then another week, and a few more varieties will have to go in. My lights are pretty full already, so this should be interesting. The bulk of the seed starting though is always the tomatoes and peppers, and it feels nice to get those done, and be on schedule for the first time in a few years.

I’m debating roping dye plants into the seed bank, mainly by putting them in the wiki and keeping track on here. They’re becoming a larger and larger part of what I grow, so that’ll probably end up happening. I also find there’s not a ton of information readily available on dye plants in northern climates, and I think having a open source of information on those for people interested in growing them in the colder zones might be helpful.