A short but exciting update

Tomatoes (and peppers? and potatoes??) for the balcony orchard

A surprise as my tomato seeds germinated from one day to the other. And maybe also my pepper seeds? Plus a curious plant that gives both potatoes and tomatoes!

In my latest article reporting the evolution of my garden, I briefly disclosed my disappointment about my tomato and pepper seeds not growing. I even mentioned that I would have to get some plants myself.

So right yesterday morning I went for a couple of plants, left them under some shade in the balcony, and went to work. When I came back late in the afternoon I was ready to plant them in their pots when I discovered this:

Tens of tomato seeds had germinated in one day! These have been very warm days with max temperatures passing 25 C, which probably helped. Here they are:

These were the seeds you saw in this previous story 8 days ago. I guess I was a bit impatient! Sorry for pushing you, my little tomatoes!

Do I have peppers too?

There was a special kind of green sweet pepper that I liked a lot, so I kept its seeds and planted them the same day I planted the tomatoes. Something is coming out, but since I don’t know the plant very well, I’m not sure what they are…

→ What do you think? Are these peppers?

Edit a few weeks later: no, they were not… :(

And a curiosity: did you know you could get tomatoes and potatoes in the same plant?

I had read about this, but wasn’t sure it was real. Tomatoes and potatoes are related (also tobacco) so it wasn’t so out of this world… Apparently, tomato buds can be grafted onto potato plants, and the resulting plant will produce tomatoes in the aerial part and tubercles (potatoes) underground.

Well when I went to a local shop to see what tomato plants I could potentially buy, I saw one such plant. They call it here “Potatom” which is an effective mix of the words “potato” and “tomato”…

As you see the “potatom” plant costs around 15 USD. So not worth it, other than for the fun... But of course it would be certainly much more fun if I tried to graft the plants myself. Good idea indeed, maybe I could try! If I do it and succeed, you’ll know it here!

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