I grew this tomato! Ok, not right from a seed- but it was a very small plant to start out. You can see it the day I planted it here. This one came from the Super Fantastic variety plant (not the upside down planter)  There are lots of tomatoes growing there too, but none are ripe yet.

Who knew I could get so excited about a simple tomato? You can see how this little guy looked 6 weeks ago here when I first discovered it.  It’s come a long way baby!

I’m dying to taste it right now, but Jon will be out all day today so I’ll wait and share it with him tomorrow. It’s my first home-grown tomato after all, I have to have an audience to appreciate it with me:-)

Actually, with this heat wave we’ve been having it’s been difficult to get anything substantial done. Yesterday I finally decided to try to get the garage a bit organized.Since we had the massive garage sale for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer back in March, the poor garage has never been the same. Stuff was just getting piled up all over the place. So, yesterday I got one side pretty much sorted out, but the back wall and the other side still need serious attention. I’ll get out there again as soon as I get my energy back.

We weren’t able to manage any time away together this summer. Jon was busy with school assignments and a project (paid!) he is working on for someone. He went to the Mission Folk Festival by himself (he goes every year but I’m not really interested) and I went with my sister Sue for a couple of nights of girl time in Seattle. We had such a good time together- lots of talking, shopping and laughing. I forgot how much fun she is to be around. I guess we are usually wrapped up in our lives and responsibilities and we just don’t get to enjoy that side of ourselves much. It was great. We plan to make it a regular thing!

I must get some new photos up of my tomato plants. I’m even getting some peppers on my red pepper plant now. It’s so much fun to see them developing. Everyday I’m out there admiring them like they’re my little babies:-)

The next 2 photos are of the large plant, the Super Fantastic variety. It’s probably 3 1/2 feet tall and very bushy now. It’s just loaded down with fruit in all different stages of growth. The largest 2 tomatoes are right in the middle of the plant, so they can’t be seen here. Every day I see more and more coming. I can’t wait to taste them!

Now I know you’re just dying to see what’s happening to my Upside-Down Tomato planter! C’mon, admit it Well, it looks really weird at the moment. It’s trying to grow up the sides of the bucket and it’s popping out with lots of flowers now. I can see just one little tomato coming right underneath. I’m not convinced about this method of growing tomatoes yet. For this one I used a variety called Patio. I guess different varieties all grow at different rates, so to have a proper experiment I should have used the same variety for each method. Oh well, it’s not scientific but it’s fun!

My pea plants are growing like weeds. I love the way the little tendrils reach out like a million little hands and grab on to anything to hold on and help them climb. The tomato cage I put around them works perfectly. All of the plants are covered in pods now, with lots more coming along. None of them have gotten to eating size yet, but I’m checking everyday. I love eating fresh peas right off the vine. None of these are going to be cooked. IMO it ruins the fresh taste.

I don’t know what is happening with the other plant (La Roma variety) The leaves look paler and are curling and it’s growing quite slowly. I’m tempted to try re-potting it into a larger container to see if that will help.I can see a couple of tiny tomatoes starting on it, but the plant itself looks a bit  sickly.

Here is a picture in case anyone out there is an expert and can help me figure out what I’m doing wrong. I picked off a couple of the lowest branches as they were growing right along the soil. You can really see how neglected our lawn is in this photo! We don’t bother watering because then we have to mow it more often:-) We’re a disgrace to the neighbourhood but we’re saving water, right?

Here is my upside-down hanging tomato plant. It’s growing madly, but only has 3 flowers so far. Looking forward to seeing what happens with it!

I moved them down off the back deck and into the yard to catch more sunlight.

I added a Red Pepper plant and I’m trying to resurrect a little basil plant I bought last week that seems to be dying. I added some seeds to these pots. We love to cook with fresh basil, so I hope some of it survives.

I planted these Little Marvel Pea seeds about 2 weeks ago.  Last time I tried to grow peas I waited too long to stake the vines and they got hopelessly tangled and I couldn’t stake them. I’m on it this time- stakes at the ready!

I’m a bit concerned about my upside down tomato project. It’s growing, but it’s trying desperately to grow UPwards, so it’s now bent double on itself and pushing into the bottom of the bucket! I think I should have started with a larger plant so that when it tried to bend, it would be long enough to get around the botttom edge of the bucket into open air.  Not sure what’s going to happen, but I’ll watch and see.

Here is today’s photo – it just looks like a blob since it’s all bent up. Poor thing is all confused!

The weather has been gorgeous off and on recently. I forced myself to weed the front garden and get rid of as many dandelions as I could from the lawn so our yard isn’t a complete embarrassment. Devon has been mowing the lawn which is wonderful. Last year I did most of the mowing- not my favourite chore! Last year I also grew some amazing Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes in a pot on my back deck. They grew from a tiny seed kit that my mom gave me, into a giant 4-5 foot bush. I’ve never grown anything from seeds before (other than some sunflowers with the kids) so it was really exciting. The crop wasn’t huge, but I didn’t know anything about fertilizing. I just planted them (in a pot that was much too small) and watered them.

This year I decided to try growing proper tomatoes in containers. I saw an infomercial about an upside-down tomato planter kit. It looked like a great idea. No staking, no worries about pests, no huge deck planters to step around. I started by doing a google search and found some how-to videos on YouTube. Yesterday, I made one out of a 5-gallon plastic Home Depot bucket. It’s not the prettiest planter, but the plastic is thick and the handle is metal and will hold a lot of weight. I also found pictures of planters made from regular hanging-basket type planters, but it didn’t look like enough soil for a tomato plant. I think you could grow tiny cherry tomatoes in those. Here is a pretty one with herbs planted on the top.

So, first you cut a hole into the bottom of the bucket. I would suggest making the smallest hole that will fit the plant through. Two inches in diameter. I made a hole nearly 4 inches and I had to rig something to prevent the root ball falling back through.

After the hole is cut out, take a small tomato plant wrap it gently around the stem with a coffee filter or piece of landscape fabric. This will hold the dirt back and prevent it coming out of the hole. I chose a tomato variety labelled ‘Patio’ because they grow a smaller fruit than something like a Beefsteak.

Then place the stem through the hole. Hang the bucket on something low so you can then fill the bucket with potting soil, packing it gently around the root ball first, then filling the whole bucket.  I also mixed in some compost from the bottom of our compost bin. I think I will put the lid on the bucket and open it when watering, so it doesn’t get flooded with run-off from the deck roof when it rains. You could plant flowers or herbs in the top instead, but I don’t think I will this time.

Hang the planter somewhere so it will get sunshine at least 50% of the time. Water it well from the top of the open bucket until it seeps through the bottom.

The soil needs to be kept evenly moist and container tomatoes need regular feeding. I did a bit of research and there are several options suggested. I’m going to try using compost tea made from my own compost. That is- soaking a bucket full of compost in water for a week, and then using the drained liquid diluted in water to feed the plant at  each watering. Apparently, tomatoes need lots of nutrients and your crop will be small  if you don’t feed them. Someone suggested mixing crushed egg shells into the soil to add more calcium. I also read that you should water tomato plants at the roots, rather than sprinkling the tops getting the leaves wet, so this should be a great way to water them.

I also planted some regular right-side-up tomatoes, so we’ll see how the crops compare. In the pots, I’ve got one called Super Fantastic which grows large beefsteak-like fruit.

The smaller one is a Roma which grows good tomatoes for making sauce. It will be fun to watch them grow and exciting to taste the fruit. Wish me luck. I will post updates as they (hopefully) grow:-) Would love to hear suggestions from anyone with experience. I’m a total gardening newbie!

The reason this is blog-worthy is because I grew my own tomato plants this year. In fact, they are pretty much the only thing I’ve ever grown successfully from a seed (apart from some sunflowers and maybe a couple of pea plants) My mom gave me a little gift-kit for growing heirloom tomatoes.
There were 4 types of seeds in the package, but I think only one type actually took hold and grew. I ended up re-planting it into a large patio planter, moved it onto the back deck, and it grew to about 5 feet high in no time. I was so excited when the first little green tomatoes appeared and took some pictures:-) They are little cherry tomatoes (not sure what variety as I don’t know which of the 4 types survived) and they taste fabulous- store bought can’t even compare! Here they are the first day we noticed them appearing.

Next year, I’m definitely going to try growing full-size tomatoes. We use lots of canned tomatoes in our cooking. Why not grow our own? I will use Beth and Meredith’s tip with the red Christmas ornaments too- what a neat trick

Update: Here’s how my tomato plants grew. The pot is much too small and there are too many plants in one pot. I didn’t fertilize either so they didn’t do as well as they should have. Lessons learned, but we did get some sweet little tomatoes in the end!

Now, if I could just get this darn Fall and Winter stuff out of the way so I can get started…