Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 12 Entries. Friday, February 26 View Page Started the long gourds. Its my first year growing long gourds, so it should be interesting. Friday, February 26 View Page I should be grafting these tomatoes in a bout two weeks. I planted all the tomato seeds from the seed exchange, but most of the ones in this picture are greenhouse and heirloom tomatoes. Dro141tx rootstock works best for me. They are kind of pricey, but worth it. Friday, February 26 View Page I was able to put my 2009 Wallace 2012 and 1495 Stelts 2010 plants into tissue culture. They multiply very easily. Friday, February 26 View Page 1495 Stelts 2010 Friday, February 26 View Page 2009 Wallace 2012 I will be rooting a few 2009s and 1495s in the next two weeks. Then grafting them to (1789 Wallace 2011 x 1985 Miller 2013) seedlings. I'm hoping to time it out correctly, so I have one or two 2009 Wallace plants to plant in the greenhouse on April 1st. Wednesday, March 2 View Page Out of culture jars and into dirt. These roots are only temporary until the plant is big enough to graft to a seedling. Monday, March 7 View Page Step 1 in the first round of grafting tomatoes. Monday, March 7 View Page I prefer the side grafting technique. It takes longer than top grafting, but my survival rate is over 99% with side grafting. I left the cotyledons on this year. Once the grafts take, I will chop the top off each plant above the cotyledons. This will bring out two leaders per plant that I will trellis. In the past I have left them and just used a tomato cage letting the plant go with no trimming. It was a mess. Thursday, March 10 View Page Started pumpkin and squash seeds. I could not decide between the 1047* Barlow '15 and the 1578* Holub '14, so I started both. This is my first time growing giant squash. Monday, March 21 View Page After three nights in the chamber, the tomatoes were placed on the bench. Step 2 came four days after that. I cut a notch half way through the scion below the graft. Monday, March 21 View Page Step three about four days later. I completely removed scion from its original roots. And banded the plant to a bamboo stick for stability. Also I removed the top of the plant above where the cotyledons were. This will send out two leaders. Monday, March 21 View Page Last fall I removed 8 to 12 inches of the topsoil from the greenhouse. It is was sandy loam from a riverbank next to the greenhouse. I had a lot of trouble with fertilizer leaching right through it last season. So I spread 240 bails of promix hp, 5 dump truck loads of cow manure (came from cows that were not given dewormer), 50 pounds of granulated sulfur, 1000 pounds of worm castings (that included 8000 to 10000 red wigglers, and 2000 to 3000 European night crawlers), and brought back in 50% of the sandy loam.