You Say Tomato, I say, Well I Also Say Tomato

It’s official, people!

Tomatoes are here to stay!

Most importantly, I remember my Grandpa Ben growing tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets in our commercial building in NYC, using any available outside space with sun. I don’t remember if he was ever successful. (I’ll have to ask my father about that.) But, he kept trying. I think he’d be proud of me for this year’s garden. 

Here are my babies, nice and big, waiting to be transplanted. I can’t believe I was actually able to start tomatoes from seed. First time! I’m really happy.

I drilled holes in the bottom of each bucket for drainage. I think I wound up making 15 holes in each. Then I put a few inches of bits of styrofoam on the bottom, also to assist with drainage. Remember, we put a whole lot of styrofoam into the tanks early on. I was able to use up a lot of left over stuff I already had. It’s very difficult to find a styrofoam recycler, and I really didn’t want to just trash it.

Then I filled the buckets with a mix of organic potting mix, organic garden soil, and left over dried, spent beer grains from Farmer Russell. It helps with drainage, too. It looks like there’s a lot of grain in here, but I wound up adding a lot more soil mix.

In go the peat pots. Plants are buried up to their first set of real leaves. All of those fuzzies on the stem will turn into roots. I left enough space and there will be enough settlement in the buckets that I will be able to add at least another inch of potting soil in a few more weeks, covering more of each plant’s stem and encouraging more new root growth.

And we’re all in! I have six plants in total, but two of them are going to ShmErin later this week. Here are my four all finished, and then in their new corner. If this space doesn’t work out, it will be easy enough to move them. I will stake the plants in the next week or two. Not sure if I want to do three stakes or a cage for each one.

Also, side note. I was wearing shorts and a tshirt upstairs last night as I worked, as it was quite hot today. Totally got a bit of a skin reaction from the potting mixes. I forgot that that happens to me. Oops. Had to shower again before bed. Oops again.