Sowed sweet basil on the windowsill.
Experiment – Suma tomatoes, from a can. I’m sure that I have grown from a tin when I was even littler than I am now, but I can’t find anyone definitely saying they have done this , so I wanted to see if I was just imagining it…with a little space in the propagator there’s no harm in trying. About 40 seeds have gone in, to give a good chance of some germinating if they are going to at all. It’s just to see if you *can* (aha) do it, and I promise I will humanely dispatch any resulting seedlings. Honest.
Elsewhere there has been excellent germination on all the proper tomatoes, transplanted chillis are doing well in spite of the snow and frost, beetroot, calendula, and rainbow carrots germinating in the greenhouse. Parsley and cosmos standing up OK to being moved to the greenhouse. I think that’s it for now, everything else seems to be stalling until it stops being quite so arctic.
3 comments
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April 13, 2008 at 12:03 am
Laura
Hi
I dropped in here as Patrick posted links to new sites he had found, including yours.
I am not sure I understand your post – are you sowing seeds from tomatoes that have been commercially processed in a tin can?
If so i would be amazed if the seeds are viable after heat processing. But good on you for experimenting. Good luck
April 14, 2008 at 4:09 pm
MissFuggles
Hi Laura
many thanks for visiting – I love reading about all the varieties you grow on your blog and meant to have it on my blogroll by now, you’ve caught me unawares.
Yes, you’re right to be uncertain. Commercial tomatoes from the wholefood supplier Suma (based near Leeds, UK, the toms from Italy). – but it’s a rumour I’ve long heard (from my dad for one…hmmm!), not to mention the legends of tomatoes gracing sewage works, so I thought there could be no harm in trying. But nope, not a sausage, all the seeds have indeed rotted which I 99% expected. Either someone’s been having me on, or possibly processing varies/has changed/some types are more resilient. So I remain sceptical but there’s always next year…
April 18, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Rebsie Fairholm
I’ve never tried it myself but … and you probably won’t thank me for telling you this … I once had a boyfriend who kept guinea pigs and often gave them fresh tomatoes. I used their manure on my garden (it’s great stuff for soil enrichment) and found I had tomatoes self-seeding absolutely everywhere! So … whatever they do to tinned tomatoes it’s obviously more destructive than going through a guinea pig’s alimentary canal.