My fall/winter indoor garden

[OmahaJB]

Finally getting back to indoor gardening after poor results in years past due to poor lighting. Was able to find a cheap HID lighting system on Amazon for $116.05 with free shipping, so thought why not give it another shot. It's a 600-watt HPS/MH system so should have enough lumens and proper color spectrum to produce some tomatoes and sweet peppers. I'll be using the MH (metal halide) for vegetative growth, and the HPS (high pressure sodium) once the plants are big enough and are ready to set flowers.

While picking up bags of soil at Home Depot I bought 15-30-15 time release fertilizer to use once it's time for flowers to develop. Would appreciate thoughts on whether that's a good combination for tomato and pepper plants, although I do know the second number needs to be higher for fruiting, just not sure if the first and last being 15 each will be too high for some reason.

As usual I over did things and started seeds for more varieties than I should be growing under a 600-watt system. General rule is it covers a 3.5' x 3.5' or at best 4' x 4' area, however I'll see how well they do and take some out if I need to later. Also, I didn't know what would germinate (some were old seeds) so wanted to make sure I had enough. It's just hard to throw good, healthy seedlings away so very few have been so far. I kept a couple waiting in the wings in case transplanted seedlings don't survive.

To clear things up from the start, yes, I know my pots are too small, and that I have way too many, and that I probably shouldn't grow indeterminates inside. I like to see how far I can push it, plus, I need to work with what I have as far as pots go. I have most of of my indeterminates in 5 or 3.5 gallon buckets, and the dwarves in 10" pots, which as I said I realize it small. They'll have to do.

Considering my main goal with tomatoes this time around is to play around seeing if I can make crosses (inspired by the dwarf project), production isn't my main concern, although desired of course.

If at some point I can either figure out how to transfer pictures from my cheap Tracfone to the internet, or I buy a digital camera, I'll then try to figure out how to post photos of the setup and garden.

For now here's where I'm at:

Wednesday and Friday I transplanted a total of 10 plants broken down as such,
Aunt Ruby's German Green
German Pink
Italian Heirloom
Kellogg's Breakfast
New Big Dwarf (2)
Rosella Purple (3)
Elephant's Ear (pepper plant)

Within two or three weeks I'll also have,
Dwarf Arctic Rose
Riesentraube
Chervena Chushka (pepper plant)

Would love to get the extra Italian Heirloom and German Pink seedlings into the garden also, but it would be foolish at this point considering I already have too many plants for a 600-watt light. I also have an extra two Aunt Ruby's G.G. but they are sloppy looking because they were too far away from the 2' shoplight I used for the seedlings. They would shape up I'm sure if I transplanted into pots, but again, too many plants. Good problem to have.

Reasons for planting some of these:
Dwarves
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Dwarf Arctic Rose for productivity. Would like to cross with Italian Heirloom which is also said to be very productive. Goal would be to get something as close to I.H. as possible as a dwarf.

Rosella Purple people rave about the taste so crossing that with anything is the goal. For instance, imagine crossing it with Kellogg's Breakfast, both great tasting.

New Big Dwarf I just think would make a good dwarf to cross with thanks to it being a strong plant with decent sized tomatoes. That's my take from reading comments from others on this site and elsewhere.

Indeterminates
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German Pink I definitely would like to cross since it was one of the first two tomato varieties that Seed Savers Exchange had when they started. I've read their blurb enough to know, but if I'm wrong I'm sure I'll be corrected. Believe they also said it came from Bavaria in Germany so that has special meaning to me since I served there for three years during the 1980's, and many of my ancestors came from that country. Would like to create a dwarf version as close to the same traits as the tomatoes from the indeterminate.

Italian Heirloom. Another one I've looked at many times in Seed Savers Exchange's catalog I've wanted to grow since its productive and a red tomato which I'd like to find a good one of.

Kellogg's Breakfast. Really only the second heirloom variety I'd ever tasted, Czech's Bush being the first, and KB blew me away. Subtle but very complex flavor that didn't hit the taste buds all at once. It was incredible. Growing environment must have been perfect that year. Would really like to cross that with Rosella Purple or maybe New Big Dwarf.

Aunt Ruby's German Green sounds like a great tomato, and I'm finally on the road to trying it out and possibly making a cross.

Riesentraube sounds like a really good cherry tomato so would like to cross that with one of the dwarf varieties, possibly New Big Dwarf.

And maybe I wont be able to cross anything. All depends on timing, and my lack of experience making crosses could gum up the works. But at least I'll have some maters to eat.

Peppers
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Chervena Chushka, more than anything I was trying to find a replacement for Elephant's Ear when I bought the seed, and the size was similar so I wanted to give it a try. The description made it sound very good, so that is another reason for growing it.

Elephant's Ear. Off the top of my head I don't recall who sent the seeds within the last year, but it was a kind lady here at TV, I believe we had a trade maybe a year or so ago. Fortunately, I was able to get one seed to germinate. Love this for it's productivity and they taste great as well. Alex P. originally shared some with me which I've always been grateful for.

Love sweet peppers for pizza, omelets, eating fresh, and making stuffed peppers.

That's the run down out of the starting gate. Will see how quickly things change as we move into the winter months. Hopefully, my landlord wont get wind of my 600-watt lighting system and consider it a fire hazard. Wouldn't surprise me, he's a bit of a tyrant. Can be a nice guy, but think he must have high blood pressure or something that makes him unreasonable at times.

Now, about my Samsung Tracfone...will see if I can figure out how to move pics to the internet. Guessing I need to buy a memory card.

Will try to update this from time to time.