I am participating in the ADAPT Seed Trial by Seed Savers Exchange for heirloom carrots and tomatoes. These are seeds that are not widely available and are distributed among participants throughout the United States. The trial is to verify their adaptation to regional climates and when grown, a taste trial to discuss its flavor. In Part 1, I wrote about the considerations that went into participating. In this section, I will discuss the progress of my carrots and tomatoes.

I planted my carrots and tomatoes at the same time, towards the end of February. It was the right timing of my carrots as my previous fall/winter batch was completing and a new batch was ready to grow in pots. I have found great success growing carrots in pots so that is my preferred way of growing them. The tomato seeds were sown in “greenhouse” planters, small cell trays with a plastic dome over them. I used only half of the seeds, saving the other half in case I needed to resow or to have for future plantings.

The next two months had unpredictable weather in Southern California, zone 10a. While 2023 was one of our rainiest seasons, 2024 was not proving to be so until March came along. We had our deluge rains and then the heat increased to near 90 at some days. This would not be an issue but the extremes in temperatures without the slow tempturature changes made it difficult for seeds to germinate. We also had several hail storms, one lasting quite long and caused damage to two of my plants, one a native sunflower and the other my passion fruit vine.

When the higher and warm temperatures occurred in March, it was the perfect weather for pests. I had many mosquito bites, close to 30 within a two week time span. I would continuously forget to spray myself with bug deterrent but even a short walk to get my mail would produce several bites. These bites occurred during the daytime and after getting many bites, I resorted to staying inside. While the mosquitos were procreating, the grasshoppers were having their day. Unbeknowst to me, it would never have occurred to me to see grasshoppers in March and April as usually they happen in the late stages of summer and right before a nice fall harvest.

My gardening assistants, my cats, helped catch several grasshoppers but it was too late for one of my carrots. The entire carrot crop was decimated by grasshoppers. Luckily, I had planted one variety in one pot so the area affected was secluded to one type of carrot while the other two in the trial was safe and growing well.

Towards mid April, the weather became more consistent and seeing that my tomato seeds did poorly with only about 2 or 3 seeds germinating from the 6 of each variety that I planted, I set out a new batch. I haven’t had too much luck growing tomatoes from seeds the past 2-3 years so I decided to “step up my game” and purchase a good seed soil starter, the Fox Farms brand. With mild temperatures that were consistently in the 60s, the tomato seeds came up in about two weeks without a plastic dome but in its natural environment. I felt like I was back on track!

With plenty of work to do in my garden, my first goal was to clear out and amend my soil with homemade compost. I also decided to purchase some worm castings as tomatoes have always done well with them and with so many tomatoes emerging, I wanted them to succeed. Keep in mind that I no longer have any trial seeds and must have these seedlings succeed to have a worthy sample and to feel like a competent gardener worthy of participating in any future heirloom seed trials.

With a huge list of garden duties, actually the bulk of it was weeding, I completed most of my major garden tasks within a month. In that time, my first task was to transplant the tomato seedlings and I was able to keep a close eye on my seedlings as I worked around other parts of the garden. By the end of that month, the tomato plants were doing quite well. The plants looked healthy and strong and at this point with the temperatures gradually warming a few degrees, the tomatoes have been enjoying the weather. I had a slow start with my seedlings but now, I don’t despair as the plants look so healthy!

Progress may be recorded on the SeedLinked App. At times, I scroll through the posts just to see what is going on. It’s interesting to see how people in other parts of the country will mention something along the lines of, seeds are sown, ready to harden off but there’s still snow outside. One post from a woman in Oceanside, California, 90 miles south of me, also mentioned grasshoppers attacking her carrots and decimating her crop. Others tried hard to start their seeds and failed and had no more seeds left. While I put on some amount of pressure on myself to succeed, I am glad I still used my judgement and was open to changing my methods to help make my seeds successful.

The next step is harvesting and the actual taste trial. Here’s to hoping everything goes as planned and our mild weather encourages more growth.