Marlin and Koda - looking at Marlin’s ghostly doppelganger, perhaps?

Let’s take a break from my Seed Collection and Off The Vine blog series and get serious about my 2022 garden plans. I will be starting seeds in a month, so this is certainly timely.

Here goes! To put this in perspective, I had 109 tomato plants and dozens of pepper and eggplants. The plan below represents the first major reduction in garden size in decades.

10 straw bales for tomatoes, 2 tomatoes per bale (not specific as to which tomato in which bale yet!).

The 20 indeterminate tomatoes.

Cherokee Purple - flavor favorite

Cherokee Chocolate - flavor favorite

Cherokee Green - flavor favorite

Polish - flavor favorite

Lucky Cross - flavor favorite

Captain Lucky - been on my list for years - a find from Lucky Cross sent by a friend

Estler’s Mortgage Lifter - searching for the real deal, trying seed from Neil Lockhart

Yellow Family heirloom, sent to me this off season

“Mary’s Heirloom” - family heirloom sent to me off season

“World War II” - family heirloom sent to me off season (maybe)

JD Special C Tex, potato leaf variant, sent to me off season (maybe)

Glory F1 hybrid which I created on film last year - Dester X Dwarf Gloria’s Treat

Cherokee Purple X Lillian’s Yellow Heirloom F2 - potato leaf selection (3 of them)

Blue’s Bling X Polish F2, potato leaf variegated selections (2 of them)

Blue’s Bling X Little Lucky F2, potato leaf variegated selections (3 of them)

The two with “maybe” above could end up substituted with other varieties. We shall see.

5 gallon grow bag - 1 in front of each of the 15 bales - 15 tomatoes

Lilly family (Lillian’s Yellow X Speckled Heart) F2 dwarf selections, potato leaf (3 plants)

Lucky family (Lucky Cross X Buddy’s Heart), F2 dwarf selections, potato leaf (2 plants)

Blingy family (Blue’s Bling X Dwarf Mocha’s Cherry), F2 dwarf selections with variegation and antho (2 plants)

Moby family (Cancelmo Family X Moby’s Cherry) - F2 dwarf selection (1 plant)

Crossy family (Lucky Cross X Mocha’s Plum), F2 dwarf with potato leaf and antho (1 plant)

Plummy family (Lillian’s Yellow X Mocha’s Plum), F2 dwarf with potato leaf and antho (2 plants)

Donny family (Don’s Double Delight X Mocha’s Plum), F2 dwarf with potato leaf and antho (2 plants)

Misty family (Mr. Snow X Mocha’s Plum), F2 dwarf with potato leaf and antho (if I can find it!) (1 plant)

Dwarf Coastal Pride (my garden friend Mike thinks this needs to be in my garden - so, here it is!)

Again - substitutions could happen depending upon germination results. It is clear that the focus this year is on finding interesting things from recent crosses.

5 gallon grow bag - 2 next to the bean and squash bale group - 4 tomatoes

Suzy F4 dwarf with fuzzy pink fruit (1 plant)

Fuzzy purple fruit (1 plant)

Fuzzy pink fruit (1 plant)

Variegated Micro (1 plant)

The last three above may be switched out - they can go into grow bags in a different location.

5 gallon pots near the driveway area fence - these are all cherry types, most sent by garden friends as unusual finds - 8 tomatoes

Egg Yolk potato leaf

Egg Yolk red fruited variant

Fruit yellow cherry

Fruity orange cherry

Suzy’s Wild Red

Suzy’s, orange variant

Sun Gold hybrid - flavor favorite

Egg Yolk - flavor favorite

The above adds up to 47 tomatoes - 28 indeterminate, 16 dwarfs and 3 ???

Five straw bales for eggplants and peppers (5 of each)

I will focus on my Orient Express and Islander selections for these.

This will prove to be a very interesting set of plants. There will be less sure things, however!