Here's what sprouted today:
- Brandywine OTV

I tilled the 18-gallon moving totes (which are holding up a lot better than the 10-gallon ones, the 5-gallon buckets, and the 4-gallon buckets), and I planted spring radishes and carrots in them.

The carrots are Parisian carrots (60 days). The radishes are De 18 Jours radishes (18 days). I'm feeling French.

Another one of the Lunchbox peppers sprouted (5 of 11).

Our volunteer blackcurrant bush is doing very well. I don't see any aphids on it, and it has lots of flowers. The birds really love the other blackcurrant bushes; they'll probably take an interest in this one when it's bigger, or when they realize it grows similar fruit. I'm excited to see how it tastes compared with the others. I'm not sure if it's a wild bush (we have wild blackcurrants around here), or if it's a volunteer from our own bushes. Either way, the leaves have a different texture; they're not as shiny; they're softer and furrier.

Today, the following new peppers sprouted:
- Coral Bell (1 of 9)

Lunchbox is on 7 of 11.

New tomatoes:
- Gold Medal
- Italian Heirloom
- Pinky Blast
- Yoder's German Yellow

Big Cheef is about to sprout (still under the soil, though).

The final Aunt Ginny's Purple sprouted.

The following new tomato sprouted:
- Big Cheef

The following new peppers sprouted:
- Canary Bell (2 of 12)
- Sunbright (1 of 2)

9 of 11 Lunchbox peppers have sprouted.

The following tomato sprouted:
- Golden Queen

One of the Lunchbox peppers fell over due to something like damping off disease. This is the first year I've seen that happen with peppers in a long time (if I've ever seen it). Normally it just afflicts the tomatoes. However, it might not be Pythium, as I don't see any erosion of the stem on the bottom of the plant (I don't see that on the afflicted tomatoes, either, this year).

The following new tomato sprouted:
- Cherokee Yellow Yellow Pear

The following new peppers sprouted:
- Big Red
- Quadrato Giallo (tr. yellow square)

The other Sunbright pepper also sprouted.

I pulled up the Lunchbox pepper seedling that had died from damping off disease to examine it. The root and the lower stem were perfectly fine (pretty nice, actually). By today, however, it had dehydrated everywhere above that point.

I'm thinking I probably should have planted my tomatoes at the beginning of April, this year (and the peppers somewhat earlier). The weather has been quite cold pretty much every day for a while now (but I have to take my plants out in the day anyway, if I want them to stay used to the direct sun). Next year, I think I'll plant my tomatoes in April.

The cold weather is a problem because it seems to encourage the pathogen that causes damping off.

I might plant some wonderberries from seed this year, after all.

We've been getting a bunch of hail, lately (perhaps mingled with snow, even). It hailed all over the place, and then the sun came out and the hail on the roof melted super fast, pouring down off the house. So, we're getting some water, which is nice.

Well, the cold weather has continued, which has led to me having to keep the plants in the house a lot more often than is ideal, such that the plants haven't fully retained their hardened off state and have been scalded on/off by the sun (where they wouldn't have been had they had more exposure). So, that, in conjunction with damping off, and colder than ideal whether when the plants are outside, has killed a lot of the plants. Brandy Boy F11 has proved quite resilient, however, as have some other varieties.

A lot of stuff just hasn't sprouted, yet, either.

I'm thinking about replanting some things, but probably not loads of things.

Here's what has been particularly resilient:
- Brandy Boy F11
- Brandy Boy F2
- Brandywine Pink
- Orange Caprese
- Brandywine OTV
- Just under half of the Medovaya Kaplya cross F2s (one of the containers is doing among the best of all the plants)
- Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach (fruit #3; those from fruit #1 suffered a lot more)
- Big Cheef
- Frog Princess (two seedlings are quite resilient, anyhow)

Ones that suffered enormously include these:
- Amana Orange (I've got like two plants left; most of the seeds haven't even sprouted, yet, though.)
- Amana Orange (Timeless Tomatoes)
- Carolina Yellow
- Lunchbox pepper
- Sunbright pepper
- Gold Medal
- Golden Queen
- Vorlon
- Primrose Gage (but it resprouted quite a few plants, which look fine; I didn't realize I had so many seeds in there)

And there are a bunch that suffered moderately to a lot, but I wouldn't call them resilient, at this point. There are a bunch that haven't sprouted, yet, too.

We are cool here all the time. fP did well in that. Nights in the 40s and 50s and days in the 50s and 60s.

The radishes began to sprout a few days ago.

So, some good news is that I think I've discovered a solution to my ultraviolet light sensitivity. So, I might be able to garden during the day, this year, without wearing goggles, nor getting a headache.

I better get to planting wonderberries (I don't know if I want to rely on volunteers, as I only see weeds volunteering out there, right now). If I'm going to be growing fewer tomatoes, and if I can garden during the day, that'll give me more time to harvest wonderberries.

I planted some more tomatoes:

- Amana Orange x 22 (saved seed, from 2021)
- Aunt Ginny's Purple x 2
- Brandy Boy F11 x 1
- Carbon x 2 (saved seed)
- Carolina Yellow x 3
- Early Girl F? x 1 (this is from my most prolific Early Girl descendant in 2017; the leaves were RL)
- Gold Medal x 1
- Hamson x 1
- Morsel-A F2 x 1
- Roma VF x 3
- Snacker-B F4 x 4

I also planted these, except in foam cups:
- Wonderberries x 2
- Misc ground cherry variety seeds from 2017 x 1 (not Aunt Molly's)

Shule wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 2:21 am The radishes began to sprout a few days ago.

So, some good news is that I think I've discovered a solution to my ultraviolet light sensitivity. So, I might be able to garden during the day, this year, without wearing goggles, nor getting a headache.

I better get to planting wonderberries (I don't know if I want to rely on volunteers, as I only see weeds volunteering out there, right now). If I'm going to be growing fewer tomatoes, and if I can garden during the day, that'll give me more time to harvest wonderberries.

I would like to hear more about the UV solution.

@MissS
I think I was deficient in choline.

Some things that also seem to help are these:
- DHA/EPA fish oil
- Sleeping in the dark (the darker the better; this makes the other things work better, too)
- Zeaxanthin

I think another problem (in addition to the weather) was that the amendments I added created a crust that I didn't notice, which probably prevented a lot of seeds from sprouting. I'll have to be sure not to do that next year.

On Friday, I planted three more containers of plants (not in foam cups):
- Pearler-A #1
- Pearler-A #2
- Pearler-A #3

#1-3 refer to which set of saved seeds from last year they came from. They're each from different fruits (but each set of seeds had more than one fruit).

All the old Amana Orange tomatoes died off (from damping off, but probably not Pythium). However, a new one sprouted, today.

I noticed that the hollyhocks have lots of variegated grape leafhoppers on the undersides of their leaves. I didn't know they feasted on those before the grapes grew leaves. They do that with garden strawberries, alpine strawberries, and some herbs, too [as well as horehound, dandelions, and pickly lettuce].

The volunteer wonderberries are growing, now (before the ones I planted in foam cups). I should transplant some soon.

I noticed our first volunteer tomato, yesterday. It was somewhere around where Pearler-A was last year. It appears to be gone, today, though. I guess something ate it, or someone pulled it up.

Here are the tomatoes that sprouted since I reseeded:
- Amana Orange (just one plant, so far)
- Aunt Ginny's Purple (both containers, I believe)
- Brandy Boy F11 (the new one; the other cell of plants is growing well; it didn't sprout first among the replants; I guess it competes better there in colder weather; it still sprouted fast)
- Hamson (the new one; the old one is still growing, of course)
- Morsel-A
- Snacker-B (two cells in addition to the one initial plant that is left)

Pinky Blast and Primrose Gage may have resprouted during that time (if not earlier). Primrose Gage is growing fast.

I split up the original Brandy Boy F11 into individual plants, then I did the same thing with Brandy Boy F2, and one of the Medovaya Kaplya cross F2 cells. So, not counting plants that haven't sprouted, yet, we have 50 cells of tomato plants.

Here's what we have, so far, not counting plants that haven't sprouted, yet (the numbers correspond to cells of plants--not actual numbers of plants):
- Amana Orange x 1 (newly seeded)
- Aunt Ginny's Purple x 2 (both newly seeded)
- Big Cheef x 1
- Brandy Boy F2 x 5
- Brandy Boy F11 x 16 (one of them was newly seeded)
- Brandy Boy F11 cross F1 x 1 (regular leaf; this is a new cross, from my garden)
- Brandywine OTV x 1
- Brandywine Pink x 1
- Carbon x 1 (sprouted, today; newly seeded)
- Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach x 2
- Frog Princess x 1
- Hamson x 2 (one was newly seeded)
- Medovaya Kaplya cross F2 x 7
- Morsel-A F2 x 1 (newly seeded)
- Orange Banana x 1
- Orange Caprese x 1
- Pinky Blast x 1
- Primrose Gage x 1
- Snacker-B x 3 (2 newly seeded)
- Yoder's German Yellow x 1

Peppers:
- Big Red x 1
- Canary Bell x 5
- Quadrato D'Asti Giallo x 1

Everything I mentioned that sprouted before that I didn't list above died. Some things still haven't sprouted yet from the first seeding (e.g. Brandywine Yellow).

I potted my rooted (via layering) spider plant chick, and some red-flowering Thanksgiving cactuses (some were transplanted). I'm hoping the spider plant will be huge within a year (they grow fast in my window).

We had a freeze last night (~28 degrees F.), which was remarkable in that the freezing temperatures were supposed to last for a number of hours (I think four or five). Nevertheless, all the weeds survived, as far as I can tell (although some of them look cold-stressed). One of our grapevines (the new one rooted in our garden) sustained some damage; I don't know if it's still alive, but hopefully it'll grow new leaves again.

I had the tomatoes and peppers in the house, but the volunteer tomatoes and wonderberries look like they survived.

I transplanted some volunteer wonderberries to desired locations (allocating for four plants). I feel like I want more, though.

The houseplants are doing very well.

My white poinsettia is growing quite a few new leaves. It still has lots of white bracts from before Christmas.