G'Day from Down Under!

[Nicos]

Hi from another one in Oz.

..of course ( I'd forgotten your location!!!)

...no excuse not to have a 'Grapestock 2009 Down Under!!!'

[binley100]

Welcome to the vine Janek .

[Janek]

G'Day All - and many thanks for your warm welcomes. I feel really at home at this forum. It seems to have a real family atmosphere!

Jeanied – you asked if we get blight here in my neck of the woods. I have a tomatophile friend in Nottingham who is in his 70s now and he told me that last season they received really heavy rain for a couple of days and within 24 hours afterwards almost all of his outside plants had been wiped out. Only those in his conservatory survived. Next season he will only grow blight-resistant varieties such as Legend outside.

Whilst we have numerous diseases here in Oz I must say that I have never had such devastation following prolonged rain so we probably don't get late blight here, or at least not to that severity, although I haven't checked this out with our agricultural people. What I do notice in my tomato crop each year is some plants get a gradual dieback, and whilst our first frost is normally mid-April many of the tomato vines have well and truly 'carked it' by the end of February/early March, so I would think this must be some form of blight – not the 24-hour one but a slower developing one, if there is such a type. I get around that problem by continuous planting. As our last frost in my neck of the woods is around the third week of October I can begin planting out then. But, after I have most of my plants in the ground I wait for the 'volunteers' (as they are called in America). I select the healthiest ones and give them a chance to 'show what they are made of'.

It is thru growing out volunteers each season that I have pleasant surprises from time to time. For instance, more than 10 years ago one of my volunteers produced fruits with a pastel apricot base colour overlaid with a gorgeous rose pink. The fruits tasted OK but as they had very thick walls they were obviously more of a paste type tomato. Needless to say, I saved seeds and grew it out again and now I have a stabilized new OP variety. I called it Polish Pastel, firstly to reflect my Polish heritage and secondly to acknowledge the pastel hues in its coloration. Over the years I have sent seeds to folks in various parts of the world and I have received positive feedback, so it appears to have adapted well to varying climates and produced good results. I have been very pleased that so many people have enjoyed this variety. You can see pics at Polish Pastel Tomato 5 Seeds - VERY RARE! Acid Free! - eBay (item 290373965281 end time Jan-23-10 12:55:11 PST) I don't know where this guy in Ohio got his seeds from but it wasn't from me. There is no way I will send any of my seeds to anyone who intends to profiteer from such a gesture!

To date I have about 10 seeds that I have saved from Chandler, this being my first season growing it out. There are about five or six ripe fruits on the plant so in the next few days I will harvest them and extract every single seed from them!

But wait, there's more! A couple of months ago, the vendor at our local farmers market who I got my Chandler plant from gave me another one. It had the same dwarf growth habit, rugose foliage and fruit size but every single fruit has a little nipple at the blossom end, whereas my other plant produces fruits with a smooth blossom end. Today, I tasted some of the 'nippled' fruits. They were every bit as flavourful as my other plant, so I was very pleased about that. Nonetheless, I am saving the seeds separately as there is obviously a genetic difference for the second plant to produce nippled fruits.

On another note, I can report that we have Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (TSWV) here where I am. It is spread by thrips. The blighters carry the virus then suck the sap of a particular plant and in so doing infect it with TSWV. Soon afterwards all the foliage turns yellow and within 24 hours the plant is dead. In all cases, the plant has died before delivering any ripe fruits. Over the last few years I have made a concerted effort to wipe out the thrip population in my yard by spraying against it when it is most active. I haven't had a plant succumb to it for the last two seasons but I can never drop my guard as the thrips are a permanent feature of my garden now. I monitor the thrip population in my yard by placing containers with some water in them around the garden. Each morning there will be some juvenile thrip floating on the top of the water. I take no prisoners in my garden so I boil up a kettle of water and tip it over the blighters to cook them! As they float on the water's surface there is no way they can escape a shower of boiling water! Is the TSWV a major problem in any part of Britain or Europe? I would be interested to know.

Mcsee, Blossom et al – I'm in Canberra, the national capital, hence the description as the Holy City, it being the centre of government for the nation.

Cheers.

Janek

[Torreya]

Hi Janek! Lovely that the 'vine's spreading so far!! I have a friend, an ex-pat in Perth with a smallholding, and last year she was telling me about her foot-long centipedes (Italian?) that had decemated her seed stocks and were starting to eat their way through the growing crops, and here's us moaning about a bit of snow!! Greetings and Happy New Year from sunny (but blinking cold) Blighty!
Rosemary