Shipping/Wrapping Tomatoes

[Daryl]

Carolyn, on the radio show today, Craig told the story about Magnus and how you were able to grow the only 2 true seedlings from the 100 tomato seeds he received from the USDA and saved it from almost certain extinction.

He also mentioned that you sent one of the two you grew to him, using a special wrapping technique. How did you do it?

[Worth1]

Bumping this so Carolyn might see it.

I would guess a box with the tomato nestled in newspaper.


Worth

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Daryl

Carolyn, on the radio show today, Craig told the story about Magnus and how you were able to grow the only 2 true seedlings from the 100 tomato seeds he received from the USDA and saved it from almost certain extinction.

He also mentioned that you sent one of the two you grew to him, using a special wrapping technique. How did you do it?

I thought the question initially was about wrapping and sending actual fruits, so was surprised to see you were asking about sending plants.

I sent that plant the same way that Craig and others have sent small plants to me. I'm surprised he didn't mention the how on that.

Depends on the size of the plant and I have no memory at all of how tall the Magnus plant that I sent him was, but in general, plant is in about a 2 inch plastic cell, use saran wrap or similar to wrap the bottom part of the plant which then covers the planting mix and keeps it from falling out and preserves moisture, since I would have watered it well already.

Take a dowel or something like that, whoops, would have done this first before wrapping, and stick the dowel in the mix and loosely attach it to the stem with twist ties and be sure it's taller than the plant to protect the tip of the plant.

OK, so now we have the dowel in, the saran wrap done and ready to ship. Find a small cardboard box, put some crumpled up newspaper in the bottom, wrap the plant well in newspaper, lay it down horizontally, more newspaper on top of it ,seal the box and ship.

Some then pray after taking it to the PO, but I never did.

from 2005 onward after I fell in Dec of 2004 there were several folks who sent me plants for here at home from seeds I sent them,since I had tried to raise my own in the Spring of 2005 since I had two light set ups, but being constrained with the walker and trying to lift anything with both hands off the walker bars was just plain stupid on my part.

The plant I sent him would probably have been 4-5 inches tall but I have received some plants that were way over a foot tall.

My plants for here at home have been raised by someone local the last few years but I don't think Rob can do it again for several reasons, so we shall see what happens this Spring.Since the ones at home here are from ones I have chosen from ones in my newest seed offer there is no place that I can order plants.

Carolyn

[Daryl]

We didn't have time to talk about everything. ;-) I'll send you the link when the archive goes up. He sounded impressed by the way it arrived and how you had so carefully packed it.

A trick that I learned is to wrap the pot, or unpot the plant, depending on the size, in a zipper bag and then lay a newspaper at an angle and start wrapping the whole thing sort of like a burrito. A couple of layers will do- enough so it's stiff. The top of the roll is folded down too, for extra protection. Then I stuff it into something like a Priority Mail Express Box or sometimes a flat rate envelope, depending on the size. The boxes are sturdy enough so that I've never had a loss that way. Yet!

I've been raising and selling plants for the mission fund at our church for many years - usually about 400 tomatoes and about a quarter of that in peppers and sometimes eggplants. I don't know whether I will be able to do that this year. I'll start scheduling more surgeries in a couple of weeks and my shoulder surgery in November wasn't a success.

I'd hate not to be able to watch those little hairpins pop and grow into strong, healthy plants. It's the best part of the year for me. I especially like getting people hooked on growing their own food. The kids call me "the tomato lady" and tell me all about growing their "very own". When they get to pick the first one, some of them have their parents take pictures for me. I love being an enabler.

[PaulF]

Fusion mails out lots of plants and he had a thread explaining his method some years back, but I am too lazy to dig it out. Maybe he will explain again. I send a few plants out to family and friends and what has been explained is what I do. Seems to work fine.

[Worth1]

I thought the thread was about shipping tomatoes not tomato plants.
I was wrong.

Worth

[heirloomtomaguy]

So i found this image years ago on the internet and pretty much copied it with success. Here it is.

[Daryl]

Is that pre-made packaging or do you make your own? I was pretty impressed by the packaging of a sample of tomatoes that I received a couple of years ago. It's pretty resource intensive, but I guess it was done that way to protect the graft.

[dipchip2000]

I was wrong.

Worth[/QUOTE]


Say it aint so Worth

While you may have been erroneous in your thinking,

You are never WRONG


ron

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by dipchip2000

I was wrong.

Worth

Say it aint so Worth

While you may have been erroneous in your thinking,

You are never WRONG


ron[/QUOTE]

Yeah your right, I posted in haste.
I wasn't wrong because I misunderstood the question.

That was a close one.

Worth