Losing Wait

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

i gave up on the 2003 uncle steve seeds.

Seeing Keith from Calumet (viewtopic.php?p=83705&hilit=Uncle+Steve ... ian#p83705) was the impetus for me giving Uncle Steve's Italian (USI) another chance, I have two (2) USI plants up and will have more seeds post season, which I'll share.

The Gotch

[rxkeith]

seeing that old thread made me chuckle. world tomato society. hooty tooty, hoity toity.
moving up in the world, yesireee i am. hah!

i have six or seven plants coming up from newer seed. uncle steve seeds are good for about 15 years
at general room temp, so don't give up on them if you got them.


keith

[slugworth]

3 year old saved seed never came up and seedlings that were in bogus potting soil died on me.
I will just have to buy plants this year.

[bboomer]

After six weeks some Siberian Velican tomato seeds finally germinated. I put them, along with all the others which were all between three and six inches tall, into my cold frame. We got a cold snap and I am afraid that the little guys didn't make it. Maybe they go in the "never" time frame.
Not to worry, my babies are back inside during this durn Wisconsin cold spell.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

After six weeks some Siberian Velican tomato seeds finally germinated. I put them, along with all the others which were all between three and six inches tall, into my cold frame. We got a cold snap and I am afraid that the little guys didn't make it. Maybe they go in the "never" time frame.
Not to worry, my babies are back inside during this durn Wisconsin cold spell.

You's must have a lot of confidence in that there cold frame (picture?) to plant in early/mid March.

Cold snapped here, too...and heck, we're well south of you's...< 1.5m/2.4 kms, am I right?

Anywho, FTR, hard frost on 05/10/2020 and flirting freeze Memorial Day 2021, here.

The Gotch

[bboomer]

IMG_1001.jpg

Risk is my middle name. Here is a pic of my cold frame. It is built from a design in The Victory Garden reduced by 50%. I had never heard of such a thing as a cold frame until I moved to the frozen north, er midwest. I was shocked that you could not just toss a bunch of seeds in the ground in April and reap a bounty of veggies in June!

IMG_1001.jpg

[bboomer]

I also planted my lettuce seeds last week. Here they are under some garden cloth. Soon I will learn their fate!

[bboomer]

IMG_1002.jpg

[rxkeith]

it took three full weeks for a virginia sweets to sprout. helmet head, so we will see.
chalks early jewel has been really slow to germinate. three weeks, and still coming up.


keith

[rxkeith]

one whole month, it took before two little anna russian seedlings emerged.
i don't think the seeds are very old, but hearts are said not to last as long as
other varieties of tomatoes. they are growing, but mighty small.


keith

[TX-TomatoBug]

About 75 days, maybe. Sometimes they sprout later than that, but that's about when I stop waiting, if I seed them at my usual time. I try to select for varieties that don't take that long to germinate, though.

@Shule, 75 DAYS for tomato seeds? I ask because I'm trying to sprout old seed that is likely a lost family heirloom which my uncle (now passed) used to grow in KY. First batch planted nearly 4 weeks ago, 2nd batch 3 weeks ago, nothing up yet. If you waited for 75 days, I will keep up the hope!

[Shule]

About 75 days, maybe. Sometimes they sprout later than that, but that's about when I stop waiting, if I seed them at my usual time. I try to select for varieties that don't take that long to germinate, though.

@Shule, 75 DAYS for tomato seeds? I ask because I'm trying to sprout old seed that is likely a lost family heirloom which my uncle (now passed) used to grow in KY. First batch planted nearly 4 weeks ago, 2nd batch 3 weeks ago, nothing up yet. If you waited for 75 days, I will keep up the hope!

Older seed can potentially take longer to sprout, as can newer seed, especially if it's been through hard times (like the mail without padding), but it doesn't necessarily take a lot longer. I would still wait a good while, though.

How you germinate them makes a big difference. My seeds that took a long time weren't necessarily very old. There were other factors like temperature, variety, soil, and stuff. Some tomatoes sprout better in some conditions (and it's not the same conditions for every tomato).

[TX-TomatoBug]

@Shule, thank you for your response. I will continue to persist with these. I have a sneaky feeling that if I stop checking them every hour and just forget about them, one will decide to make an appearance.

[greenthumbomaha]

I must be impatient. It's been "only" 8 days since I planted the tomato seeds, and only those two had nothing sprouted yet - Big Cheef and Daniel Burson, out of 22 varieties. This morning I took my olive fork - something I keep in my seedling room to carefully dig up seeds, or seedlings, carefully checked them. This time I dug up the seeds in those 4 pots that I didn't have any visible sprouts in, and found a sprouted seed in one of the pots of each of those two varieties - the other two pots had unsprouted seeds in, for both varieties. So I left the barely sprouted seeds in those pots, the other two pots I left the seeds in, but also dug up some "extra" seedlings, from some similar varieties, and planted those, and labeled those. If those really slow seeds eventually come up, I might dig those up and plant them - depends on how slow they are! And these two are new seeds this year - not some old ones, which did just fine. And most of the seedlings have their first true leaves forming already, after just 8 days.

I hope Big Cheef and DB germinate for you. I grew both last year and they grew huge and tasty, It was a long, hot summer which helped to have large tomatoes actually ripen mid season. I felt like I was living on the sun, baking the soil every day with not a cloud in sight for months.

I won't pull out my tomato seeds until the weather service makes some predictions for next summer. Then it's a scramble to find a mix of new varieties and old seeds I want to try before "they" give up.

- Lisa