Bob Ross, famed PBS artist, was noted for saying among other things, that there are happy accidents. We may have found some in a recently planted seed starting tray.
We have a raised bed just for herbs; dill, cilantro, parsley, oregano and basil. We didn’t get the cold hating herbs out before the first killer frost, so we started over from seed in January.
Happily, the basil cells germinated a few weeks ago, but did they?
As you can see, this is NOT basil. It looks like a tomato seedling to me, but I was not sure. The seed packet said Sweet Basil.
There are Aps for everything now, so a plant ID app was added to the iPhone and up popped…Currant Tomato. We do not have a single seed packet for this variety of tomato and we have seed organizers that separate types of seed packets. Ie: one container each for; tomato, beans, leafy greens, herbs, carrot, beets, squash, peas, etc, etc, etc.
How did these get into the cells?
Looking at soil make up gives us a clue, but not an answer. 1/3 coconut coir, 1/3 perlite, 1/3 worm castings. Perhaps there were currant tomato seeds in the worm castings…maybe…We do buy organic cherry type tomatoes at the grocer and put leftovers in the worm bin.
We may never know, but…we are keeping the currant tomato seedlings and attempting to grow adult plants from them. We know, it’s too early for tomato, but what have we to lose? We will put them in one of the hoop houses when they mature and see what happens.
Ron's Ramblings 