Sunday, June 19, 2011

Organza Bags for Isolating Blooms

Ever since I learned about heirloom tomatoes, I've been pretty obsessed with them.  It's opened a whole new world for me, especially since I grew up only eating Beefsteaks and Romas.  I had no idea there was another whole exciting world of tomatoes out there!  Even today when I'm in the supermarket, it's sad to see how there are so few varieties of tomatoes available.   I'm now on this crazy quest to taste as many heirloom varieties as possible and hone in on the ones that I like the best, so that I can save seeds and continue to grow them.   I'm growing 22 different types of  tomatoes this year. Since I want to save tomato seeds, it'll be important to me to isolate the blooms so that they don't cross pollinate.  I want to get true seeds.  That means I was on a quest to buy organza bags so that I can bag the blooms and prevent any cross pollination.  A fellow garden blogger, Garden Hoard told me about these organza bags on Ebay. At $4.29, it is an amazing price for 100 bags, plus free shipping!  You cannot go wrong with that!   I received my order of organza bags last week.  They are amazing!  Now I just have to wait until all the plants start flowering!

11 comments:

  1. I'm excited to hear about these 22 tomatoes you are growing. I'd have to say your going to have fun taste testing. MMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm!
    I had not realized to save seeds of the tomatoes you needed to isolate them, learn something new everyday.

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  2. What a great idea. Keep us posted on how your tomatoes grow and of course, TASTE. :)

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  3. Wow - 22 heirloom 'maters! GO YOU! I can't wait to follow your progress. My goal is to eventually have everything we grow in the garden be from heirloom seeds.

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  4. I've never isolated my tomato flowers. I've been growing and saving the seeds of at least 16 (it fluctuates from year to year) different types of heirlooms for the past 15 years, and have never had any cross pollinating problems so far.
    The idea seems sound, but I think you might be giving yourself more trouble than necessary: my garden isn't big, and I cram 14 to 20 plants into one bed (otherwise I wouldn't be able to rotate my crops), and space the plants under 12", and the only tomato that does not always come true to seed are the grape tomatoes -which are a hybrid anyway. Even the currant tomatoes, which are notorious for cross-pollination, come true to seed.
    Good luck all the same!

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  5. Great idea with the organza bags. I haven't planned that far in advance yet (seed saving). I'm still hoping my tomatoes grow!!

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  6. Thank you for sharing this ideas. In Malaysia, we usually used this same organza bag to fill in sweet or cakes or little souvenir for guest who attend our weddings. Sometime people just take the gifts and throw out these organza bag. What a nice way to recycle this organza bag. I might ask my mama to collect and keep some for me when she come to visit us next.

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  7. I guess I have no idea what you are doing to the blooms. Will have to look it up.

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  8. It would be interesting to experiment using these bags one year but not the next to compare and see whether isolating the blooms really makes a difference.

    I had the same thought regarding my tomatoes, which I'd like to save seed from this year...I'm too lazy to go to the trouble, though, so I guess I'll just see what I end up with next year!

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  9. I would think that inter planting with tomatoes, etc., will help a great deal. Of course, really amending your soil with compost is always beneficial as they don’t like “good” soil.

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  10. What's up i am kavin, its my first occasion to commenting anyplace, when i read this piece of writing i thought i could also make comment due to this brilliant paragraph.
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  11. Great Idea! We can use organza bags in so many different ways like for party favors, jewelry gifts and anything that will fit in them. I usually buy organza bags from FetPak, they have a wide variety of organza bags in various colors, cheap and of a good quality.

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