Taking a cue from Barry, a friend from whom I have stolen several good gardening ideas, I bought this $20 metal side table from Ikea over the summer with the purpose of using it to display some of my 16 agave plants (or is it 17? Someone make me stop.). For months I scoured the thrift stores for something used, hoping to find a table that would match Barry’s, a quality, heavy metal base with what may be a granite top. Luck was not on my side so I gave up and opted for Ikea.

I chose metal because it is lightweight and can hold up to the weather outdoors. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the product on the Ikea website — they may have discontinued it. However, if you are interested in something similar, I also purchased this metal, white side table with the intention of painting it a bright (yet undetermined) colour.

Here you can see that I have tucked the table into the junction between two raised beds. It looks great here but is a bit of a hazard as we have to be conscious of the big blue agave in the centre (ironically named ‘Spineless Blue’) when picking beans or herbs from the bed. We have both poked ourselves on it countless times and I very narrowly avoided getting stuck right in the face just the other day.

Form over function, baby!

To review: here’s what they looked like a week and two weeks after I sowed the seeds back in January.

It’s hard to believe, but three short months ago the lithops seedlings were only just beginning to show their distinct colouration and patterns. Now look at them!

And here’s the part in the process where I start to screw things up. While this was my first time starting lithops from seed, it was not my first excursion into the world of cactus and succulent seed starting. Here’s my pattern thus-far:

1. Start seeds. Germination. Kick ass!
2. Seeds develop into tiny seedlings. Continuing to kick ass!
3. Tiny seedlings develop into small versions of their adult counterparts. Now I am kicking ass and pumping the air with my fists.
4. Cockiness sets in. I transplant the seedlings.
5. I admire my handiwork and lovingly stroke my gardener’s ego for days, weeks even.
6. Transplanted too soon. Plants die. The end.

My worry now is that the lithops will get too hot and go into premature dormancy. And then I will water them too much and they’ll rot. I understand what they need in theory but something about them just won’t click on an intuitive level. I’ve chatted extensively with lithops growing friends and am hoping that magical lithops growing juju comes to me and two years from now I’ll be showing off a bowl of adult lithops like Barry’s.

But I suppose if I lose this batch, there’s always the next. Even though it’s the wrong time of year to start, they’re germinating as I write this.

BTW: The lithops Grow-Along is still going. Get some seeds and join us. We’re all learning as we go.

When I last spoke of the Office Tomato, I described a plant that was quickly headed towards its final days. It had three ripe fruit and I was hoping to keep the plant going long enough to turn out a forth.

Amazingly, I managed to keep it alive to get not only a forth, but a fifth. There was even a sixth that made it to full size, but it stayed green.

The plant did die back. I have cut the stem down to a six-inch stub and am planning to put it outside to see if I can coax a second life out of this thing. Office Tomato 2: The Resurrection! And why not? I’ve got nothing to lose but a bit of time spent caring for it. My main concern is that the plant was not at its best, and that should a resurrection occur, I could find myself with a new, albeit sickly or disease-riddled plant. As I type these words, I can’t help but think of bad Zombie films, Reanimator, and Frankenstein. As if my resurrected plant is going to take on a life of its own, turn bad,and go on a rampage.

I need BRAINS! BRAINS!

The Taste Test
My second reason for bothering to keep this particular plant alive is the fruit. When I decided to nurture this particular volunteer plant, I predicted that this would all just be a bit of fun, but that the tomatoes themselves would be mealy and unpleasant. NOT SO! They were delicious. Very delicious. We ate the first and the last few straight up with a pinch of salt. The skin was a bit thick, but the insides were juicy with a nice tang. They were not mealy in the least. I made the mistake of leaving the last few on the plant longer than I should have as I did not have time to take pictures. You can see a bit of splitting in the full tomato depicted above. Tomatoes that split tend to turn mealy very quickly. These didn’t! They were just as juicy and delicious as the first.

Unfortunately, I’m still not sure exactly which variety this is. I grew a limited number of varieties on the roof last year (the volunteer came up in a houseplant that had summered on the roof), but I still can’t pin-point which one it was. I’ve narrowed it down to ‘Czech’s Bush’ or ‘Sophie’s Choice.’ I’ve been growing both varieties in pots for years. They are excellent, early producing varieties that do well in mid- to large-sized pots. Both produce similarly sized, red fruit. The leaves looked right. The only difference is that ‘Czech’s Bush’ is a very stocky, hardy plant. It’s short, thick, and rugged. This plants wasn’t any of those things particularly, but I wonder if that could be the result of a lack of light. It was grown in a window through the dim days of winter after-all. And it was never as leggy as other windowsill-grown plants have been. Either way, I’ve also saved some seeds from one of the fruits and might try growing those out this year to see if the plant shape changes at all in outdoor light.

The experiment continues. I hope my experience has inspired you to try your hand at an office (or bedroom, or living room) tomato this year. For the best chance of success, I’d go with dwarf varieties as they tend to be a bit more forgiving about a lack of light and can tolerate a very small space. But then again, I had luck with a larger determinate, so you never know. Gardening is an evolving never-ending experiment. Have fun with it!

It has been about a month and a half since I last wrote about the Office Tomato and it’s about time for a good news/bad news update.

The good news is that I returned from a 10-day trip to Thailand to two ripe tomatoes and a third that is very nearly there. I feel lucky to have made it this far and was equally impressed that our friend and house-sitter, David, was able to keep the plant alive, especially since the weather has been unseasonably cold and grey.

The bad news is that the reign of Office Tomato is coming to an end.

I had hoped that the plant would be able to hold on long enough to make it outdoors, but with another months or so to go before tomato planting time, it is clear that a quiet retirement soaking up the sun in the fresh air is not going to be a reality for Office Tomato. The hard work of producing fruit indoors in an inadequate lighting situation is taxing all of the plant’s resources — it is literally on its last legs.

But first, let me backtrack:

I took this photo on March 26, just before heading off to Milwaukee. Already I could see that Office Tomato’s days were numbered and that its health was on a downward slope. I observed that the leaves had begun to curl under and had lost their luster. They just weren’t as green as they should have been.

Fortunately, the fruit itself was healthy so we soldiered on. By now the plant required a healthy drink of water everyday and I supplemented with sea kelp. I could have brought in an artificial light, but by now I was determined to see this experiment through without the aid of lights.

Office Tomato today (April 19, 2011). As you can see it is very ill. The leaves are droopy, yellowing, and getting crispy along the edges. I think it has some kind of viral disease, but the what doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there is no saving the plant. My goal at this point is to try and keep it going long enough to turn out a forth ripe tomato. I doubt the fifth will make it. There are other smaller tomatoes, but those are a lost cause.

What I’d do differently:

• I stopped hand-pollinating the flowers long ago as I knew the plant would never be able to sustain more than 10 tomatoes. In hindsight I should have cut back new flowering stems the same way I do with my indeterminates near the end of the growing season.
• I should have supplied a better source of nitrogen earlier in the plant’s growth. I didn’t go out of my way to do so because I did not begin this experiment with the mind to try and produce fruit. I never imagined I would still have the plant so many months later. The reason why I didn’t supply better nitrogen was because I could only find fish emulsion in the boxes of garden gear that are sitting in the basement since we moved here. Fish emulsion stinks. I use it outdoors, but would never try to use it in my office.

Next up: I’ll taste the tomatoes that were produced and let you know how they turned out. Ripe, slicing tomatoes, a whole month before it is safe to put tomato plants outside in my climate and months before I would typically harvest a homegrown slicing tomato… Exciting!

I am currently on a long flight to Thailand. Either that or I am currently in Thailand and passed out from a bad case of jet lag. I haven’t worked out the math. Before leaving for the trip, I assessed my seedling situation and decided that plants that were busting out of their seed starting pots would need to be repotted into larger containers if they were going to have a shot at thriving during my time away.

It’s surprising how much plants can grow in two weeks time!

I also decided to do this in consideration of our house sitter who is significantly over-loaded with plants to care for while we are away as well as a fussy, prima donna cat that will probably hiss and swipe at him at least once before our return. Plants that have overgrown their containers tend to dry out quickly and he’s got enough on his plate between my ever-expanding collection of houseplants and the myriad of seedlings I’ve got on the go in anticipation of gardening season.

So with just a day before our departure in front of me, I set out to upsize a few plants to larger containers. Unfortunately, I did not have any containers left! But what I did have was a pile of yoghurt containers that I’d been saving for another planting project. Yoghurt containers are perfectly sized for larger transplants that can no longer fit into a 4″ pot. They provide ample root space for larger plants to grow into.

To prepare the plants for their new home, I simply:

1. Washed them clean with hot water and soap.
2. Drilled several holes into the bottom using a 1/4″ drill bit.
3. Repotted using seed starting soil.
4. Added a dash of vermicompost and dried sea kelp.
5. Gave them a once over and a good soak.

p.s. The plant in the first photo is a tomato cousin called jaltomate. The plant is a lot like a tomatillo and the fruit is dark and is reported to taste like a cross between a tomato and a blueberry. This is my first time growing it. Should be interesting.

Two months ago I had a brand new lighting setup and a hankering to test it out with some seeds so I sowed three packets that had been sitting around for a year: lithops, mixed succulents, and mixed cacti.

Watching them develop into surprising, mystery seedlings has been a pleasure and it’s been equally fun trying to guess what they will become as they develop past their seed leaves and start to grow into miniature versions of their future selves.

Sort of like raising baby humans, but without the sleepless nights and poo.

The lithops continue to resemble little buttons and tiny cervixes. They’ve developed past a uniform bright green appearance and have taken on more distinct looks. I’m not familiar enough with the myriad of different varieties to make any identifications, but I’m feeling very optimistic about the hot pink seedling and the purple one that is a little bit transparent on the sides and is flecked with white dots (above).

Back in January I introduced you to my office tomato, a mystery volunteer plant that I began nurturing for its delicious tomato leaf smell. Well, it looks like Mystery Tomato is about to offer up something else that is delicious — it’s making fruit!

Here is a photograph of my plant in the window it lives in, taken just this morning. The plant is over 2 feet tall now. I have steadily upgraded it into bigger pots as it has grown. It could have been taller, but I buried a large portion of the stem when I last upgraded it as a way to ensure a more stable root system. Its current pot is 9″ deep and 10″ wide at the top.

Surprisingly, the plant isn’t leggy. It’s growing in a south-facing window and it seems to be getting just enough light to keep it happy. Any less and I’d be concerned. One of the biggest challenges around growing tomatoes indoors through the winter is the lack of sunlight. For the most part, the sun isn’t bright enough and the days are too short. Tomatoes need a lot of sunlight to produce fruit. If you want to try growing your own, I’d recommend growing dwarf varieties that are less demanding and will fit underneath supplemental artificial lights. My plant is much too large for that so the most I can do is turn it regularly so that it receives an even amount of light on all sides, and hope for sunny days.

Other things I have been doing to nurture its growth:

• Watering: I give it a big drink whenever the soil starts to dry. It’s been drying out faster since it started to flower — I’m watering it every other day now.
• Fertilizing: When it was younger, I worked vermicompost (worm castings) and a very small amount of powdered fish meal into the soil whenever I repotted. I also fed it kelp meal now and again. Now that it’s blooming and flowering I’m going to lay off of the fish meal entirely (it’s too high in nitrogen) and give it kelp meal and a bit of vermicompost only.
• Touch Therapy: I gently stroke the plant everyday. Touching and moving the leaves mimics the effect the wind would have on an outdoor plant. This helps it to grow stockier and sturdier, and I get to carry that delicious tomato leaf smell around with me in return.
• Repotting: I’m not yet sure if it will need an upgrade as I am still uncertain about the variety. This is one of those instances where I wish I did a better job of documenting the varieties I grow. The fruit looks like it is developing a ribbed shape. This narrows the possibilities down to a few varieties, but the leaves have me baffled. They don’t look like the leaves of the plant that comes to mind. In the end it will be the size and colour of the mature fruit that solves the mystery. Here’s hoping that I can keep the plant healthy enough to produce mature fruit!

  Thankfully, the days are getting longer and brighter as we head into spring, so my chances are improving as the plant grows larger and more demanding.

• Hand Pollinating: Since my plant is not outside where there are insects and the wind to help it pollinate, I’ve been doing the deed myself using a soft paintbrush. Everyday I gently rub the bristles around each open flower until every blossom has been touched more than once. It’s working. I haven’t lost a single blossom yet and there are five tomatoes developing as I write this.

  Other methods of hand-pollinating include: Gently flicking the flowers or shaking the plant, using a cotton swab, using one flower to swab the others, using your fingers, and using a toothbrush or an electric toothbrush (the vibration mimics the movement of a bee).

UPDATE: I’m posting update photos of the tomato’s progress to my flickr account. Click here.

At about 2 weeks old. I’m not sure if they are developing colour due to age or the lighting. They were much greener shortly after germination.

Two of my oxalis plants are blooming and at least one more has buds that are on the way. First up is Oxalis obtusa ‘Buttercup’.

Here’s a photo of the plant, back in November when it was still in the process of emerging from dormancy.

I used to keep the oxalis in my unheated porch, but had to move them into the basement under lights when pots started to freeze. It’s still chilly down there (they like some cold), but I think it was the lights that prompted this big wave of blooms.

I’ve had my new lighting setup in place for a while now, and last week I finally got around to sowing the lithops seeds I purchased almost a year ago. Here they are this morning, a few days after they first started to emerge from the soil.

Based on the size of the vermiculite, you can see just how tiny they are. So adorable.

Sowing Lithops

I sowed these seeds in pots of sandy/gritty cactus soil with a layer of vermiculite on top. To be honest, it was the seed packet that suggested vermiculite. I would have used fine grit, but I don’t have any on hand. I’m a little bit wary of the vermiculite as it holds so much water. I’m worried that I’m going to pay for this later in a pot of rotted seedlings. Seed packets aren’t always right!

I then put the pots inside clear plastic sandwich bags and tied them closed to lock moisture inside. I could have used a humidity dome to this effect, but the tray I had them in was shared by a disparate group of plants that were all germinating at different rates. However, I have since removed them from the bags (no air) and have them underneath a dome that I can prop and close to provide air circulation.

Unlike their parents, lithops seedlings need consistent moisture. I’m pretty confident in their care, it’s the mature lithops that continue to baffle me after years of trying and failing. I understand what they need in theory, but I’ve found that for me, gardening isn’t just about an intellectual understanding, it is also about knowing what to do intuitively. There is a lot of trying and failing until I “get it” on that level. With some plants it has been easy, but lithops has been a trial. I will not give up!