FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I am a lifelong collector of Rhipsalis and unusual small fruits. Also have a decent collection of Sansevaria. Unfortunately, I moved about 5 years ago and the new place just does not have the appropriate space to maintain the Rhipsalis and small fruits, so I have been losing a few each year. CP's allow me to collect and maintain under artificial lighting, so appropriate space is not as much an issue as for the others. I have (or) had a dozen varieties of blueberries (including pink varieties), have honey berries, chinese cherries (including a white variety), beach plums (including a white as well as a red variety), hardy kiwis, goumi, autumn olives, oticali berreies, white strawberriees, sea berries, lingonberrries, ground cherries and a number of other unusuals. Currently growing crosnes, which is not doing as well as it should. Trying to figure out the right conditions for it. Always have a collection of tomato varieties and one year grew about 70 varieties (mostly colors and forms) just to compare. Favorites include SunGold (the best), Great White, Pineapple, Yellow Stuffer and Granny Smith.

twitcher wrote:Always have a collection of tomato varieties and one year grew about 70 varieties (mostly colors and forms) just to compare. Favorites include SunGold (the best), Great White, Pineapple, Yellow Stuffer and Granny Smith.

How in the world did you find that many varieties? I can barely even find grape tomatoes! Do you buy seeds online?

I used the internet to search the world to track down unusual varieties and species. Its much easier these days. For the white beach plum, I had to track a rumor to find someone that had a couple of plants growing that produced the fruit. I got some seeds from them, but the plants from seed produced purple fruit, so had to plan t seeds of the cross pollinated first generation offspring to finally get a single plant. Alas, it is not growing well these past two years, so I am trying to take some cuttings and save seed. But I am not as young as I once was the the quest becomes harder to pursue.

Regarding tomatos, please check out rareseeds.com, (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds) a family seed company that produces amazingly beautiful color catalogs, and easily sells at least 70 tomato varieties. Another good place to try is totallytomatoes. Rareseeds sells something called an Oticali berry, a member of the nightshade family, that I have grown for a few years now. It does not take up a lot of space. If you want to try something really bizarre and scary, try litchi tomato. I've grown it off and on for years. That one initially took me more than a year to find a seed source, but that was pre-internet.

I'm a bonsai hobbyist so the majority of my plants are actually trees and cuttings from them. Aside from those, I also grow some succulents and have a couple of arrangements of my own. I think my favorite plants are the dwarf fruiting types (cherry mainly) or the ones that will flower. Wrightia Religiosa (Water Jasmine), Fukien tea. I also grow a few others things like grapes, blackberries/raspberries, oranges. Then there is that odd rosebush that never wants to work with me and some azaleas that work too well

I got around 1,200 varieties of tomatoes

Also, enjoy growing wild tomatoes. Endless possibilities as long as you avoid the likes of Caveman and Barney.

Got a small oak collection featuring Quercus insignis which produces the largest acorns in the world.

And also have a small agave collection featuring the biggest agave species: Agave atrovirens.

Lots of other cool things in the pipeline that must be kept under wraps for now

Ha Ha Copper, I doubt that I could even eat 1200 tomatoes during a season, even if they were cherry tomatoes (currant tomatoes maybe). Do you eat the large acorns or turn them into flour? How to you keep the tree rats at bay???

What does one do with 1,200 vines worth of tomatoes? I mean, that's like on a commercial scale!

LOL! Well you don’t plant them all every year! You just have a rotation period.

It’s still very much a young oak tree around 3 feet tall.

Copper2 wrote:LOL! Well you don’t plant them all every year! You just have a rotation period.

Ah, I see. How many do you have growing at any given time each growing season?

When I was growing up in Ohio, our backyard had some random cherry tomatoes growing all over the garden and they'd reseed themselves every year so we'd always have them each summer. Made for great salads.

My grandfather would always grow Big Boys in his garden and boy did they live up to their name! They'd get up to 2-3 lbs! Big enough to be a meal or two in themselves!

twitcher wrote: ↑Sat May 30, 2020 3:28 am Do you eat the large acorns or turn them into flour?

We have naturally growing white oak. We can collect 4-5 give gallon buckets of them a year. They are fed to our pigs as a treat, although they tend to miss a lot of them, leading to a bunch of random oak saplings in the pen!

Acorns are amazing! They have so many uses!.

Copper2 wrote:LOL! Well you don’t plant them all every year! You just have a rotation period.

Still. 1200!? That is crazy. I did not even know that many existed!

Artchic528 wrote:They'd get up to 2-3 lbs! Big enough to be a meal or two in themselves

Wow. This thread is making me more and more amazed by tomatoes! And I don't even like them that much!

Benny wrote: Wow. This thread is making me more and more amazed by tomatoes! And I don't even like them that much!

I've never been a big fan of tomatoes either. I think I used to like them as a little kid, but one day I just stopped eating them.

Artchic528 wrote: Ah, I see. How many do you have growing at any given time each growing season?

I am wondering that too.

Tomatoes are delicious when homegrown and you have a good variety. Or they can be downright nasty. I have a tomato that has a very small amount of wild genetics and I think it’s nastier than real wild tomatoes!

Well, there’s a ton more tomatoes out there. 2,000+ varieties. And I only have heirlooms and wilds. I actually haven’t grown a ton out in one year since this whole tomato acquisition kinda happened last year Most I’ve grown in one year is probably like 10 varieties. Once I move though, I’ll be looking at probably 300 varieties rotated every year just to keep the seeds fresh.

Seriously, if you grow cp's you should at least check out litchi tomato. They are tasty, if you can work up the courage to try them. Not a true tomato though. Can't grow indoors unless a greenhouse. I once started a number of litchi plants indoors one time, and had bought some cheap potting soil. The soil was contaminated by a small black fly of some type, might have been fungus gnats. Had hundreds flying around for a couple of days. Anyway the plants were about 8" tall when I came home one day and found all the gnats dead on the stems of the litchi tomato plants. Don't know why and now wondering if it might have been some form of protocarnivorous or just self-protection. No dead on the other plants, just the litchi.

twitcher wrote:Seriously, if you grow cp's you should at least check out litchi tomato. They are tasty, if you can work up the courage to try them. Not a true tomato though. Can't grow indoors unless a greenhouse. I once started a number of litchi plants indoors one time, and had bought some cheap potting soil. The soil was contaminated by a small black fly of some type, might have been fungus gnats. Had hundreds flying around for a couple of days. Anyway the plants were about 8" tall when I came home one day and found all the gnats dead on the stems of the litchi tomato plants. Don't know why and now wondering if it might have been some form of protocarnivorous or just self-protection. No dead on the other plants, just the litchi.

Tomatoes are actually ptocarnivorous. I suspect they don't show it very much in cultivation due to all the fertilizers in the soil they are planted in. I really want to do an experiment growing one in potting soil and one in a cp mix.

They show proto carnivery all the time. Ants are always stuck on the stems