Tomato Update 8/30 - Close to the End

At the end of the growing season, I have finally started harvesting tomatoes. It's been getting cold, so I've been picking them as they get their red blush all over, and put them in paper bags. It seems to go quicker, and I'm impatient for tomatoes.




I don't think I'll have enough for sauce and salad, unless the tomato plants hold out a little longer, but whatever, I learned a lot, and I know how to not eff up so much next year. Maybe next year I'll have a backyard, and I can't post about planting in the ground and the completely different learning experience that'll be. Won't that be fun?


A quick photo showing my tomato compared to the store tomato. Theirs is bigger, but fuck if mine doesn't taste a crapload better.

Tomato Update 8/05

The tomatoes are still coming along, no signs of redness yet. I fertilized today, and checked all the fruit for disease, and so far, nothing.

However, I have been noticing that the lower leaves on the oldest plant are starting to die a bit. I'll keep an eye on this, but so far, I think my plants are ok.

Tomato Update - 7/28

This photo is a little late, but better late than never. This is the largest tomato on all four of my tomato plants. After I plucked off all of the diseased fruits and wept, the plant developed a lot of new flowers, that have already started budding into tiny fruits. I have lots of new tomatoes, none of which is suffering from even the early stages of BER. Yay!
I amended the soil with some old compost I had, bone meal, egg shells, and a small amount of unflavored gelatin, which my mother recommended.

I've changed the image hosting to picasa for the blog. I recently installed it on my computer and now I'm wondering whyyy I never looked into it before. However, I think I will keep using Flickr for other photos for the time being. Picasa is just more convenient for posting images here.

Tomato Update - 7/24

It was probably a given that I was going to end up with a disease that is extremely common among container growers. And it doesn't help that I wake up late, well after the sun has started to heat the soil in my pots, and the water dries up.
This is good experience for future tomato growing endeavors, but for now, it's so disheartening, seeing all those tiny tomatoes, with black soft spots on the bottom. UGH. I plucked 8 diseased tomato-ettes a few days ago, but new ones have popped up. There is not ARGH enough to portray my dismay. No, I'm not being melodramatic.
Perhaps I should buy one of those bulb waterers they show on tv? I don't usually drink any bottled drinks, but I managed to scrounge up two old plastic bottles and have them in two of the pots as slow-drip system thingers.




It has suddenly gotten very dark outside, and a bit thundery. Beautiful. Last week lightning struck nearby and reset the power in the entire house. I'm off to unplug important things.

Spring 09

           

The tomato I first planted in late January has been coming along, albeit not without some struggle. It's been transplanted into a bigger container and already has quite a few leaves, as you can see in the first photo. However, I might have been a little heavy handed with the fertilizer I added and might have burned the early leaves a little bit (photo 3).

The violet blooms are my biggest surprise of the season. When we bought the plant about a year ago it bloomed for a few weeks, then went dormat for a while, with nice dark green leaves. When it started blooming a few weeks ago, I was super surprised. It's been a very low maintenance plant, thus far.


Next Update: Chamomile Seedling & My Compost