I have a problem – I think I screwed up the tomato seed “fermenting” process and killed all the seeds. I usually don’t do that, but did for the San Marzano seed because they were stickier and slimier than the others and it was a huge mess on the paper towel I had initially collected them on. Everything else is sprouting fine right now, except for the San Marzano.
This brings me to my dilemma – do I repurpose all the start cells for Brandywine and have them be a bit behind the others or cross my fingers and hope the San Marzano seeds start growing. I’m leaning towards doing just that – if I don’t do it, and they end up not sprouting, that would be 96 plants removed from the giveaway. I’ll still have the “seed sushi” (as my wife started calling it – the rolled bubblewrap with a layer of soil) experiment with some San Marzano seed in case they do miraculously start growing.
I’m really disappointed. I was excited to have the San Marzano plants to give away, as many people around here are into canning and those are some of the best for sauces to can. I was also looking forward to making my own sauce from complete scratch and learning to preserve it myself this season. And fresh bruschetta with herbs from the garden is just… *chef’s kiss*. I’ll pick up a few plants from my favorite nursery in the city when we next go, but it won’t be close to the volume I was planning on growing this season.
Writing this out and having the discussion in my head directed me to the solution – scrap all the San Marzano cells and replant with Brandywine. I’ll save the “sushi roll” just in case, but I’ll plan to pick up some plants in the city. I don’t want to lose close to a hundred plants I could give away because I held out hope for these seeds I probably drowned. It is an extra bit of a downer because I had put so much stock in them this year – San Marzano was the variety I planted the most of, because of all the requests for sauce tomatoes last season.
And unless I want the current Brandywine babies to have an even bigger head start, I had better get to it…
Song of the day: Crush With Eyeliner by R.E.M.
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