Cherry Tomato Season Starts Now
There's snow on the ground and it is below freezing outside. It is middle of winter with dreary gray skies. There's the kind of cold that makes you question why anyone lives in this part of the country. And why we haven't moved to Florida yet.
So naturally I ordered cherry tomato seeds.
I know it sounds crazy but this is how I'm planning to get a head start. Start the seeds indoors now and by the time Spring rolls around we've got seedlings ready to go instead of starting from scratch when everyone else is just putting seeds in the ground. A few weeks of indoor growing will hopefully make a big difference when the weather finally breaks.
Got a grow lamp in the basement already with some plastic sheeting for humidity. Just haven't figured out what I want to plant them in yet. Will it be egg cartons, seed trays, old yogurt containers?Any recommendations are appreciated. If not, I'll figure it out. Half the fun is improvising with whatever we've got lying around.
I love cherry tomatoes and always have. In salads they add that little burst of flavor. On sandwiches they're perfect. But honestly my favorite way to eat them is straight off the plant. Just sitting with a bowl and popping them in my mouth one after another. There's nothing like a homegrown tomato. Store bought doesn't even compare. Those things are picked green and shipped across the country. They look like tomatoes but that's about it. No flavor or soul.
We haven't had a real garden in a couple years. Our soil is garbage and it is hard as a rock and basically clay. You almost need a pick axe to break through it. 've broken a couple of shovels sine we lived here trying to dig in it. Tending it would take years of work and money we don't want to spend on dirt. So we tried container gardening on the patio last time. Pots and planters that seemed like a good idea. It didn't work out so well. Things didn't grow right, watering was inconsistent, the whole thing was more frustration than harvest.
But we're thinking about trying again this spring. Maybe with better pots. Bigger pots with a better soil mix. Lessons learned from last time. The mistakes taught us something even if the tomatoes didn't survive.
These seeds are the first step. Get them started in the basement under the grow lamp and see what happens. Keep them alive long enough to transplant when the weather warms up. Worst case we've got some green plants to look at during the cold months. Something growing while everything outside is dead and grey. Best case we're eating fresh cherry tomatoes by summer.
Not sure what motivated me to do this for winter. I think it's reading all the gardening posts lately. Doing so sounds about right for where I'm at these days.
Thanks for reading,
Joe
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I hear that! I've just made a heap of seed tray labels out of a plastic yoghurt container and felt rather satisfied doing it.
Cherry tomatoes are a great choice. Little pops of flavour. I hear you re: the pots and failure. My two metal raised beds haven't produced as well as I hoped, except for beans, which have done well. I'm going to get a PH tester I think. Add more compost?
But if at first you don't succeed, then you know what to do, right? Maybe research a proper soil for them? I always put eggshells and a banana or banana skins in the hole I plant tomatoes in. Seems to work.
I'm excited for you!
I think it will be interesting. Watching little seeds sprout up in my basement. Eventually becoming full blown tomatoe plants. I will keep the tip about soil and banannas in mind. We just bought a regular garden potting soil and used it last time.
It's a good mindfulness activity along with your battleship. Just don't get confused and colour in the tomatoes ;P
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I gave up on a real garden a few years ago after we started traveling so much in the summer that it was too much work to keep up with it. The weeds grow so fast in my raised bed. It's nuts. I'd like to put some flowers in there eventually though I think. Maybe I can find some perennials that I won't have to mess with too much.
We gave up on veggies for a garden. But the wife still does flowers all over. We planted wild flowers this last spring and they went nuts. Some had stalks that grew at least 6 feet tall. They are supposed to be perennials since they are wild. We will see. I would say since you travel, that may be a good bet to do perennials. Not much fuss. Just a little care here and there. Then again, flowers are not my thing, the wife takes care of them.
I think the biggest issue will be keeping the weeds at bay. That's something I should be able to handle every now and then when I mow. I hope anyway.
I wish I had soil. I did try my hand a bit of gardening when I lived in the middle of nowhere, Thailand, but was largely unsuccessful. I do not have a green thumb. In the end my garden resulted in a single tomato and pumpkin vines that just went on and on and on but never produced any sort of fruit.
I don't have a green thumb either. I have a feeling it would be hard in that kind of space unless you have a ton of bees to pollinate. I've had it before where I had to take a paint brush and pollinate the flowers on a zucchini plant myself to actually get it to grow and zucchini are famous for being relatively easy to grow!
The beauty of trying is that we are learning, noo matter if we succeed in growing the plant, and watching them die.
!LOLZ
I think the potted one, ot maybe try to make a raised bed with some compost into it. I mean itf you wanted to keep on gardening, just put any leaves or any organic matter there, and you can use it in a year or two without the need to buy the soil.
!PIZZA
Yeah, we will probably stick with pots. I think we will try ot do compost in the coming years. Probably too late for the coming season though.
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I'm glad you didn't give up even though it's winter. That's the gardening virus we share in this wonderful group.
My wife has already planted some plants in egg cartons, if yours has biodegradable cardboard on those boxes. Then just put the whole egg carton in the ground as a seedling.
If you have a problem with poor soil like I have in my garden where I now have an orchard. Instead of tilling the top surface, try digging a few holes and adding humus there and maintaining that part. You can even line that hole with some old tiles and leave the existing soil, clay, underneath.
Or without digging on the surface of the ground itself, make a few hollow boxes for humus
We have thought about raised beds before, but not sure. We may just go with pots again. We have some ver large ones. I appreciate the tip about the degradable egg cartoons. We were leaning toward those.
My 2 cents on cherry tomatoes is that grow very well on compost heaps so give lots of organic matter. Tomatoes also need a lot of regular water and good ventilation or they get red spider mites. Bigger pots will help for sure
I have fans for them in the basement when they are seedlings. When we transplant them we do have big pots. We will have to make sure we get good cmpost to place in the pots. There is plenty of ventilation and we will water them well.
Sounds good!
Oh nice one Joe! I love to grow things, but have not had a garden for years. Ironically I got myself a teeny indoor table top hydropnic thing to grow salad and cherry tomatoes, we should compare results, if I ever got my arse into gear that is!
Imight look into one of those thingys too. Yes, getting arses in gear is the key.
IT wasn't that long ago that I saw a product being advertised that was a box sort of thing that you could keep in your house and it had pre-programmed types of seeds that the machine would help you to optimize its growing. It had lamps and the ability to monitor humidity etc. I think it was cleverly designed to make you think that it was for tomatoes when in reality it was so that people could grow weed in their houses. That obviously wouldn't come pre-programmed into the menus but since you could download any sort of plant that you wanted I would be willing to bet that this was one of the more popular options.
Anyway, I love cherry tomatoes and wish you the best of luck. Regular full sized tomatoes and I are not friends, but I do enjoy their much smaller family members.
Sounds like a very interesting gadget you speak of.
Here in our province tomatoes now is in demand because of low supply. I wanted to plant also tomato in may backyard garden.
I do hope you are able to plant some then.