Tomato Plants a-poppin'!

They're starting to poke through the soil. I have both flats under a 4 ft fluorescent light out on the porch. Actually, I just let them go on their own from last Sunday till Friday, at which time I added the light over top. I would love to experiment with doing some time lapse pictures of them as they sprout and grow. Maybe I can talk my wife into letting me use her old laptop and I can probably scare up an old webcam (Good idea Diggs)...

So I also helped 'The Neighbor' build another Salad Box. This one was made of 2x4 and some screen. It's roughly 16" x 32" and is put together with 8 screws. Important to note that pre-drilling is a good idea and makes your life easier in the long run. With someone with some knowledge on using a saw and a drill it should take mere minutes to get together and ready for dirt. A metal screen is stapled onto the frame after it's screwed together, making sure to double-up/fold the screen over where you staple it on the sides for extra strength. 'The Neighbor' always uses another layer of 'ratwire' that just increases the strength and makes sure that the screen won't fall through after the dirt is added.

Video shows short clips of the assembly, screening and two salad boxes made from old lumber found in one the many sheds on the compound. Shows that it doesn't take much to grow fresh veggies like lettuce, spinach and herbs inside using some partial sun coming from a window and artificial fluorescent lighting. The lettuce is probably going on 3-4 weeks and the spinach 2 1/2 weeks. There is also some parsley in there as well.

note2uppl: Yes that is a Gen-U-ine miniature ball-peen hammer!

Tomato planting time!

I don't know if it's late or early for getting my tomatoes started. I always forget the dates that I planted them the year before. Last year I even went so far as to write everything down... who knows where that paper is... ha.

A couple things I wanted to mention. Everyone I've seen uses different mediums to start their seeds in. Some like sunshine mix, some use seed starting mix... I like to use dirt. When I say dirt, I mean that I like to use something heavy, dark, and something that's easy to get AND keep moist. All of those seed starting mixtures out there are mostly sphagnum moss. That stuff is a pain in the butt to get wet for the first time. Last year I had to put a bunch into the wheelbarrow and dump some water in and mix it around forever until it soaked up the water.

This year I'm just using a Miracle Grow potting soil. Yeah, most people probably wouldn't use it... it has weird stuff in it... and fertilizer but you know what? When I'm planting this many tomatoes, I'm going to do what's easy and I know this stuff works. Probably better than all that sphagnum moss, at least in my opinion.

Today I planted 144 seeds. Here's the rundown:

36 Paul Robeson (true seed)
18 Tasty Evergreen
18 Red Zebra
18 Gold Medal
18 Yellow Mortgage Lifter
18 Nyagouos
18 Japanese Trifele

I still have all my Uncles seed to plant as well as some more Paul Robeson that I saved from my own tomatoes last year. I wanted to see if they might be a bit different since they were packed in with some other tomatoes. It'd be cool to see some crossbreeding going on with that one.

My wife and I have been real busy with life in general so I haven't had much time to post. Work picked up, a lot! And it's rare to get a day off that you don't work or plans doing something else. I'm still trying to get lined up to do some of the things I talked about in the previous post.

Hope everyone is well... and yes I know I have 'ham hands'

Tomatoes!

So I can't stop myself...

So today I went to throw away the envelope that my Uncle sent me seeds in and realized there was one more little bag of tomato seed I didn't even see. A variety called Boxcar Willie! I've seen this variety a number of times and now I get to try it out.

That compounded with the fact that I ordered more seed today means that I have a real problem. A bunch of plants that I want to have - vs - not that much space to plant them. I'll definitely have to figure something out.

I added to my original list which brings the total so far to:

Paul Robeson (the favorite)
Boxcar Willie
Gold Medal
Black Krim
Yellow Oxheart
Yellow Mortgage Lifter
Lemon Boy
Better Boy
Green Zebra
Red Zebra
An organic Tasty Evergreen
Japanese Black Trifele
and Nyagouos (another purple/black variety)

So my list is growing. I don't want it to really but I can't help myself. I'm going to need to talk to someone about some land ha!

I hope to update from here on out weekly and plan on doing some how/to posts including but not limited to:

How to make your own salad boxes
How to make your own seed starting/growing shelves complete with lights.

Hope everyone is well.

Ok...

So there's 10 or 12 inches of snow on the ground... so what? We can still all dream about planting our tomato plants can't we?

I'm going to try a little harder this year to post more pictures and maybe even some video on the who, what and where. I just got some seeds in the mail from my Uncle George including Black Krim and Yellow Oxheart. This should be a fun year as tomatoes go.

I learned quite a bit from last year.

1. I need a bigger garden ha!
2. Flagging tape does hold up tomato plants but DOESN'T hold up tomato plants with tomatoes on them.
3. I know what didn't do well last year and what did.

As far as #1 is concerned, I'm going to address that to a point. Last year I had a strip of grass big enough for my tractor to fit down the center of the garden to get my clippings to the compost. I'm going to turn most of that back into usable soil. That at least would give me another two rows of tomatoes.
I'm not going to mess with cherry tomatoes this year. They did great last year but I personally could care less about them. My list of tomatoes that I want to plant is this:

Paul Robeson (the favorite)
Gold Medal
Black Krim
Yellow Oxheart
Yellow Mortgage Lifter
Lemon Boy
Better Boy
Green Zebra
Maybe a new Green Variety...

Now, instead of the 17 varieties I had last year, I can plant more of the tomatoes I really want to eat!

As for #2... I found out the hard way and toooooo late that flagging tape just won't hold tomato plants full of tomatoes to stakes. I did come away with three smaller rolls of concrete wire from the job site this fall so there's at least 7 or 8 more cages right there. I guess I will go spend the 70 dollars per roll and at least buy one, which would give me another 20 25 cages. With my slimmed down list and # of plants I should be fine adding those to what I already have.

Enjoy the Snow everyone... at least everyone around here...

Chris

Tomatoes on Sale

I put some tomatoes up for sale this past Sunday. They seemed to go pretty quick. I think I'm going to be selling them on Sundays and Thursdays for the time being.

So, if you're looking for something good to eat, stop by the backyard and put your money in the toolbox!

$1 a pound.

Paul Robeson

All I can say is yummy! Picked a couple Paul Robesons today. The first got quartered and eaten with salt and pepper. The other became Angelas' first tomato sandwich of the year. Things are looking up. Still crossing my fingers that I have a good selection come the middle of this month. With only a couple ripening we'll just have to see.
Hopefully everyone gets a chance to eat one of this variety this summer. Awesome taste, rich and just different. 'Better' even... when fully ripe the inside is almost a beet red color.

Also ordered a scale to put on the stand. As I said in my last post I'd hate to 'package' the tomatoes up already and with so many different sizes it just makes sense to sell them by the pound.

It's funny how great that thing tasted today. I guess I haven't really eaten a tomato like that since last year. Maybe that's why. The hothouse tomatoes you buy in the store with the dry pink interior just don't make the grade.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

3 Paul Robeson Tomatoes look to be ripening. They should be ripe in a couple days. Alas the public will not see them ha... I'm still hoping that the others begin to ripen shortly. Hopefully in 2 weeks (more or less) I'll have a decent enough selection to go around. I don't know how many Early Girls I'll even have as they seem to not be producing very well. The shade I think is a big factor for them. The Brandywines look awesome but are still not showing any color. Lets cross our fingers and hope that it all comes together soon.
I still need to figure out how to sell them. It's going to be a 'Do it yourself' stand as I won't be around during the day, but I'm leaning on finding a cheap scale to screw down to the table back there. Weight would be the fair way to do this. Especially since some of the tomatoes will barely fit in a quart container. Plus I don't want to set them up so that people HAVE to take what I choose to put in the baskets/containers. Should be mix and match.

I will also say that when they start ripening, the heirlooms will probably go real quick. When it all goes down I'll post more about them. The red and yellow striped varieties look to be well on their way and if they're as pretty as I think they're going to be, they'll be the first ones to go. People also need to understand too that the Heirloom plants don't produce as many tomatoes as the others so when they go out there, first come first serve. I'll most likely be putting them out around 6am to 6:30am so the early bird gets the worm.

Again, just a note to say it's the beginning but that no tomatoes are out yet. I'll post pics of the first ripe ones in the next couple days :) They'll be getting eaten by me! Hopefully this is the start of something good.