Having a wonderful time, wish you were here...
We do love our vegetables here at the Ranch! And try to cater to their every wish and comfort. As you can see, these two are relaxing on their own lawn chairs. They are not drinking Coronas today but they are drinking in the sunshine.
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth
this kind of youth must be!
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion
must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato,
or a not-too-French French bean!
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank
as an apostle in the high æsthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy
or a lily in your mediæval hand.
And ev'ryone will say,
As you walk your flow'ry way,
"If he's content with a vegetable love
which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure
young man this pure young man must be!"
~from Patience by WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, 1881
These beautiful tomatoes were given to us a few weeks ago by Joyce, our cousin with the greenest thumb in the Puget Sound area! She has a gorgeous sweeping lawn with wide beds of perennials, annuals, and raised beds of vegetables and herbs. She had several tomato plants that she didn't have room for and was very happy to clean out the space in her greenhouse and send them home with us.
I let them become acclimatized to being outdoors in the sunshine and rain for a few days, then transplanted them to larger pots, which she said would be large enough to hold them as they matured and produced fruit. One trick she suggested was to tear off the lowest leaves and put the rootball deep into the pot, possibly burying the stem a few extra inches deeper than normally. I did it and it seems to have worked! The plants are thriving. Good, fresh top soil/potting soil with generous amounts of Miracle Grow and daily watering helped, too.
I put two of the pots on a pair of old plastic lawn chairs out in the middle of a sunny spot in the back yard. It's probably deer height, but some people have said the deer won't bother tomatoes. I just don't know what to expect once the fruit begins to set on. I put the others on the back porch. I don't think deer will climb stairs, so if they do demolish the other two, they won't be as anxious to gobble these. Both tomato areas have a solid Southern exposure.
Originally I had planned to line the small walkway by the front door with the pots of tomatoes, but decided against it when I realized they had only an Eastern exposure and would not have direct sunlight for most of the day, and they would be exposed on the ground to the whims of every creature that trotted through the property.
The tomato varieties include Early Girl and Stupice, which are both perfect for our cool, mountain/marine climate. I will update their progress as the summer progresses. I haven't grown tomatoes for probably ten years and never in containers before, so this is going to be a fun and I hope delicious adventure! Now all we need is good "tomato weather" and we'll be feasting on fresh tomatoes for weeks!
Thanks bunches, Cousin!
6 comments:
I have never had any luck with tomatoes, they just never seem to thrive for me. Perhaps I was not seeing to their needs and providing enough pampering.
I like the idea of the containers, maybe I will give it a try. I would definitely be interested in an update when they start to bear fruit.
SQ
SQ!! Tomatoes are pretty picky. Good soil, fertilizer, warm temps all help. But if its not a good year for tomatoes, I'm convinced there is nothing you can humanly do to save them. These varieties are good in Western Washington, but they still become distressed if the temps fall below 55 degrees at night, which we have had since I got them. Our daytime temps have been lower than normal lately, though a few weeks ago we were in the 90s and my fuchsias became so distressed I almost lost them. I didn't have the tomatoes then. My cousin was growing them from seed at that time. This has been a rotten spring/summer with such weird weather.
Find tomatoes designed for your climate. Put them in an area that will get the most sun. If it gets too hot for them, rig a tent over them. Keep the air circulating. Water the dirt BUT NOT THE STEMS AND LEAVES. Most tomatoes like moist but not soggy dirt all the time. Fertilize regularly, but not too much each time because you don't want to burn the roots. Remove any diseased leaves and keep pests off. Use a cage to hold them and yes, go ahead and baby them.
Also ask local master gardeners for help, since they would know all the local tricks and would have a list of acceptable varieties. A good nursery is the place to start.
I will update. It would be very cool if you grew some tomatoes, too, and had a good crop! Good luck!! And keep us posted, too! :D
Wow! What yummy looking tomato plants! They look MUCH healthier than mine which are in the ground in my garden! Glad I found you here! (cybersales71)
Carol A!!!! I'm so glad you found me, too!! Thanks for the compliments on the tomatoes -- all thanks to my cousin for her expertise and green thumb!! We'll see what they look like in a month or so...
I swear by Miracle Grow or one like it I got at Walmart [same composition with lots of nitrogen] which you might try on your tomatoes. They need a boost now & then. I hope it helps!
Thanks for dropping by! Don't be a stranger! :D
SF, do they really produce in those small pots? I tried tomatoes in pots the last 3 yrs to no avail..they just got too big even with a cage on them. I must not have a 'tomato thumb':( Do love to eat em though!!!
SG!! These two varieties are supposed to work in this size pot. My cousin grew them from seed and transplanted in a larger 1 gallon pot and said they would do fine in these. I have them in cages and they are growing and they have blossomed and now I have a few thumb-sized tomatoes setting on.
When I used to grow them in the ground up in Seattle, I kept the soil mulched, enriched, and uniformly moist and I had bushels of tomatoes off about a half a dozen plants. They were in full sun, but against a wooden fence which could reflect the heat. Once the nights grew warm [mid-50s and up] they just took off. Out here, the warmest we've been has only been around 50 at night, lately in the mid-40s. Uniform heat, good uniformly moist soil, and fertilizer now and then will produce the best tomatoes. I will keep you posted as the summer progresses.
I don't think it would be too late for you to try them again. Get a good local variety. Then baby them. You could have a lot of fresh tomatoes in a few weeks.
But if it's still too cold at night forget it. Buy a couple of flats of Beefsteaks from the Farmer's Market when they're available. That's fun, too!! Good luck!! :D
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