Triple Variety Tomato Graft Experiment

[Delerium]

Oyster Bucket we made from Store bought Oyster stem cuttings has been a huge success. We have harvested quite a bit just from this 1 bucket. I noticed Oysters are starting to pin from one of our raised beds and looks like a huge cluster.

This being my first time at cultivating oyster mushrooms it sure is whole lot of fun.

2nd picture - Oysters from raised bed pinning

[Delerium]

Small updates on the Tomato Grafts, Oyster Mushrooms & Garden.

[aclum]

Hi Delerium,

I've been meaning to post to compliment you on your beautiful oyster mushrooms! Something I'll have to try one of these days. Are they seasonal or can they be grown year-round? I was thinking that since you're so good at thinking outside the box to come up with things, maybe you could work on some methods to "domesticate for home cultivation" some of the 'wild" mushrooms like chanterelles and morels.

The garden itself looks great. I see you've made quite a few changes - including more tomatoes. If you feel so inclined and it's not too complicated, maybe you could post on exactly what varieties you have growing - including the various rootstocks and scions. I've been listing my own recent plant outs on another thread (that you might have noticed).

Anne

[aclum]

oops!

[Delerium]

Sure Anne. I will name a few. But all my graft combo's are different rootstocks on different scions - no 2 grafts alike and have roughly 70+ varieties growing right now. For eg. First tomato graft picture in the front is Earl Faux (RS) & Custralee (Scion). Right behind that plant is (RS) Behemoth King on Cowlicks Brandywine. 3rd Tomato Pic is (Gary O Sena RS) Scion Berkley Tie Dye. 4th picture is Sweet Gold (RS) on Prudens Purple. I also grafted Burpees Steakhouse on to a potato leaf Omar's Lebanese. Figure one of those varieties will give me a large tomato. Claud Browns Yellow Giant (RS) on Dana Dusky Rose.. and so on so on - the list goes on.

This will give me a good idea on which rootstocks perform better than others so i can continue to narrow down rootstocks that are best suited for multiple varieties. My goal is to enjoy more varieties without the need for extra space and also the possibility for interesting crosses for my garden. Most of the time i am pretty good and maintaining tomato plant health so the need for disease resistance grafting is not really a priority for me. By the time heat hits us.. Season is over. Better for me to restart from scratch than watch unproductive plants during the our hottest months.

Anne i guess mushroom season would come to an end outdoors if temps were to hot (since for oysters like 80-85f for optimum growing conditions - cooler temps usually make the caps darker which was interesting to see). But as soon as temps start to drop after summer I would imagine you could continue to grow mushrooms again if you keep your mycelium going. It's so much easier to grow it outdoors than indoors IMO. For me the indoor mushroom grow methods are just to complicated to get started. But might do indoor grows during the summer.

Here is a partial list of my tomato varieties this year. I have more varieties i grafted later which is not on this list.

[Delerium]

I was wondering if anyone can help me ID this mushroom. Sure looks like a Portabella. Any help appreciated. It's showing up in my raised beds - and I am thinking one of store bought portabella's that ended up in the compost bin is now making a home in my raised bed.

[JamesL]

Delerium,
Read this before you chow down. Unless of course you already have!
I would bet that it is exactly what you think it is but a simple smell and color change test would not hurt...
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/show...Number/2011722

[Delerium]

Originally Posted by JamesL

Delerium,
Read this before you chow down. Unless of course you already have!
I would bet that it is exactly what you think it is but a simple smell and color change test would not hurt...
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/show...Number/2011722

Roger that! I am going to the store to pick up some portabella's to compare with ours. Actually i did post about this earlier last year thinking it was something else that's common to our area (Agaricus californicus which is poisoness). And re-posted on the same thread on Shroomer.org to get some 2nd opinions and turned out its most likely Agaricus bisporus. Which is portebella's. I did photo document it since i first spotted it in our raised beds. It's kinda cool to look back on how all these mushrooms started in the first place. I might have to pick up some reference books to learn all the terminology.

Here is the thread i posted at shroomery on these mushrooms.

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/show...umber/19155625

[Delerium]

Today's Oyster Harvest!

[peebee]

Delirium, I enjoy reading your posts and esp your photos. Truly awesome. I am going to try the rootless grafting this week, and the "regular" way also. This will be my first time ever. I have plenty of tomatoes already in ground so if I fail this first time, no big deal.
Your mushroom growing inspired me to try my hand at growing enokis. Years ago, some grew in my compost bin, back when we had rains in winter and the weather was colder. The enokis died before I picked any. I just buried the bottoms (about 2 inches) in wood shavings and coffee grounds and some compost. The weather is too hot now so it probably won't be successful. I will try oyster mushrooms later this year. Anyways, thanks for posting!

[Delerium]

Originally Posted by peebee

Delirium, I enjoy reading your posts and esp your photos. Truly awesome. I am going to try the rootless grafting this week, and the "regular" way also. This will be my first time ever. I have plenty of tomatoes already in ground so if I fail this first time, no big deal.
Your mushroom growing inspired me to try my hand at growing enokis. Years ago, some grew in my compost bin, back when we had rains in winter and the weather was colder. The enokis died before I picked any. I just buried the bottoms (about 2 inches) in wood shavings and coffee grounds and some compost. The weather is too hot now so it probably won't be successful. I will try oyster mushrooms later this year. Anyways, thanks for posting!

Thanks. Very interesting on the enokis mushrooms (might have to try that). On the grafting - Like I mentioned many times on other threads =) go easy with the humidity in the recovery chambers. To much water = problems and recipe for disaster. Pre-soak your DE (but don't use a bottom tray after its pre-soaked (allow it to dry out on its own) / punch holes in your DE for the graft inserts / spray the sides of your humidity chamber. Before you graft make sure your scion and root stock is well hydrated. Then Graft (Mist your plants once) and don't do it again. Typically by 5-10 days the grafts should heal.

Here is some images I've been saving up to do a how-to guide later.. Figure it might come in handy for the new grafters (wink)

[Delerium]

So here is some of my Dwarf Grafts i did. They were a bit harder to graft since the plants are so short.

First pic - Defiant Rootstock / Scion - Mr Snow (I am curious about this one)
2nd pic - Mr Snow / Rosella Purple

[aclum]

GREAT photos, Delerium!

And happy to see that you got the "stacked graft' in there ! Can't wait to see your completed set of instructions with photos.

Keep up the good work!

Anne

[Delerium]

The fun is just starting! Cowlicks Brandywine was the first to bloom. Hopefully it will be the first to set.

1st pic - Tomato grafts in Macro Bins
2nd pic - 3 variety stack graft.
3rd pic - I never get sick of seeing potato leaf and regular leaf on the same plant.
4th pic - same as above
5th pic - Trying my hand at growing some Big tomatoes (yes i got suckered in to Burpees steakhouse). Since this is a dual variety graft i would like to see how OL (potato leaf) stacks up against Burpees Steakhouse. I will probably prune tomato flowers to encourage size on the 2 vines.
6th pic - Regular tomato grafts in raised beds - in the back square bed converted to Mushroom bed (the one with tarp). We made a mess as you can see.
7th pic - Cabbage is driving my patience but finally starting to head.
8th pic - Can you find the tomato plants?

[JamesL]

D,
I echo Anne - Keep up the good work! I have 30 plants going in DE that are all slated for no roots method or vertical graft attempts. Sitting on my hands itching to get started...