So I am pleased to announce that my tomato plants have reached a foot tall.....they are really growing.....lol....I enjoy having them in my house but I have decided that they are ready to be moved outside. My grandmother in law has graced me with part of her garden so they will be going in the ground on monday(weather permitting)
anyway.....just wanted to say thanks for the advice!
Kitty
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Kittygreenthumb86
- Full Member
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:29 pm
- Location: Fort Wayne, Indiana
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Kittygreenthumb86
- Full Member
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:29 pm
- Location: Fort Wayne, Indiana
They just grew.....lol.....I didn't really do much with them....I just put the seeds in the soil and watered them everyday and fertilized them every two weeks......it was easy.....lol.... I think the trick was that I started them in peat-pots, which allow moisture to come and go naturally and allow the roots to breathe.
Kitty
Kitty
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Lauraluvstomatoes
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- Posts: 20
- Joined: Sun Jun 01, 2008 9:12 am
- Location: Indiana
Hey from Warsaw, Indiana - I just saw my friend's in-ground garden and her tomato plants are gigantic with lots of blossoms. I thought my container tomatoes were doing well (some are a foot, some smaller but looking healthy, most have blossoms) but by comparison look far less robust. Kinda skinny and leggy. Should I have tomato envy or is it just a natural difference between in-ground tomatoes and container tomatoes at this stage in the process? I'll try to figure out pictures if that would help. Thanks - LLT
You still did better than me Kitty.
I've read that overall most do better in the ground than in containers. Don't have much to compare. Mine are all in containers and they seem healthy enough to me. My neighbors' plants are all 2x if not 3x as large as mine but they started theirs from seed and began hardening them off to plant outside a while ago. Theirs went straight in the ground.
I've read that overall most do better in the ground than in containers. Don't have much to compare. Mine are all in containers and they seem healthy enough to me. My neighbors' plants are all 2x if not 3x as large as mine but they started theirs from seed and began hardening them off to plant outside a while ago. Theirs went straight in the ground.
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Lauraluvstomatoes
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- Joined: Sun Jun 01, 2008 9:12 am
- Location: Indiana
Thank you Lorax! I need to chill about my tomatoes but part of it is my 5-year old son is really engaged in it and has worked really hard. Of course, we learn more from our failures than successes so maybe that is ok too! BTW, the Lorax and Horton Hears a Who are our two favorite Dr. Seuss books!!!!!!
One more thing if you have the time, I have been reading up on it and there is another chain about "no blossoms" and another one about "too much nitrogen" (which I have a post there too). Only about half of my plants have blossoms. I think the combination of pre-existing fertilizer in soil and adding fish emulsion may have drown the less hearty breeds with too much nitrogen. So the plants are healthy but are not flowering. Do we 1) start over (Aaahhhh . . . plus not sure could afford more dirt!); 2) remediate soil (with what . . . leaves/bone meal? and how logistically do it? take out plants which are already caged and I am worried about stressing plant); or 3) none of the above, plants are DOA?
Any insights much appreciated? Hopefully there will be responses to my other post too!! Thanks
One more thing if you have the time, I have been reading up on it and there is another chain about "no blossoms" and another one about "too much nitrogen" (which I have a post there too). Only about half of my plants have blossoms. I think the combination of pre-existing fertilizer in soil and adding fish emulsion may have drown the less hearty breeds with too much nitrogen. So the plants are healthy but are not flowering. Do we 1) start over (Aaahhhh . . . plus not sure could afford more dirt!); 2) remediate soil (with what . . . leaves/bone meal? and how logistically do it? take out plants which are already caged and I am worried about stressing plant); or 3) none of the above, plants are DOA?
Any insights much appreciated? Hopefully there will be responses to my other post too!! Thanks
Hey Lauraluvstomatoes, here's the deal. I volunteer at a few nursing homes in the area. I do not do tomatoes. I didn't particularly want to do tomatoes. They asked nicely so I did tomatoes. This year we started tomatoes inside back a few months ago. Helped pot up lots of tomatoes at several different local nursing homes. I'm pretty good with some plants but no skill set what so ever with tomatoes or veggies. opabinia51 created a tomato FAQ which I added the name of this site to the top and a big URL to the forums then I inserted all of his information on growing tomatoes and increased all the font so residents could read the type and closed by typing the above was compliments of opabinia51 of The Helpful Gardener. In other words, I took all his work as is and cut and pasted it into handouts that I passed out to all of the residents at all of the nursing homes.
Unfortunately, one of the nursing homes I volunteered at is a memory care unit. Their residents either forgot how many times they had watered their tomatoes or forgot to water them. I think just about every one of their tomatoes died. Fortunately, that nursing home is a memory care unit so when I went out and replaced every single drowned or dried out dead tomato plant with one that was alive from trays of tomato plants I bought at WalMart, all of the residents were happy that their tomatoes had done so well. There are times when bait and switch are appropriate. Their tomatoes were planted outside by the residents a few days after I swapped them out to turn over watering of them to the maintenance staff. Those are all doing fine now. The tomato plants at the other nursing homes were watered better but some of the residents took them back to their rooms to grow on their window sills. All kinds of different exposures based on what side of the building a bedroom was on. About a third looked really great, a third looked so so, and a third looked eh... I helped the people who had plants that looked "eh" to fertilize their plants and oh shock of all shocks... one night out in the ground and they looked like a million bucks the very next morning... yup, bait and switch again. I went over there at night and swapped out the "eh" looking tomato plants. I think all residents had a good time planting their seeds in little pots and then planting tomatoes outside in the ground so all of the tomato planting sessions were a good thing in my mind. And the few left over tomato seeds that I had planted, well... they're in tomato plant heaven. Somebody forgot to water them with all the plants around here.
So see, everybody did better than me.
I can't answer your questions on no blossoms or too much nitrogen but I personally have no qualms about re-potting most plants that don't look too happy into a fresh medium.
Unfortunately, one of the nursing homes I volunteered at is a memory care unit. Their residents either forgot how many times they had watered their tomatoes or forgot to water them. I think just about every one of their tomatoes died. Fortunately, that nursing home is a memory care unit so when I went out and replaced every single drowned or dried out dead tomato plant with one that was alive from trays of tomato plants I bought at WalMart, all of the residents were happy that their tomatoes had done so well. There are times when bait and switch are appropriate. Their tomatoes were planted outside by the residents a few days after I swapped them out to turn over watering of them to the maintenance staff. Those are all doing fine now. The tomato plants at the other nursing homes were watered better but some of the residents took them back to their rooms to grow on their window sills. All kinds of different exposures based on what side of the building a bedroom was on. About a third looked really great, a third looked so so, and a third looked eh... I helped the people who had plants that looked "eh" to fertilize their plants and oh shock of all shocks... one night out in the ground and they looked like a million bucks the very next morning... yup, bait and switch again. I went over there at night and swapped out the "eh" looking tomato plants. I think all residents had a good time planting their seeds in little pots and then planting tomatoes outside in the ground so all of the tomato planting sessions were a good thing in my mind. And the few left over tomato seeds that I had planted, well... they're in tomato plant heaven. Somebody forgot to water them with all the plants around here.
So see, everybody did better than me.
I can't answer your questions on no blossoms or too much nitrogen but I personally have no qualms about re-potting most plants that don't look too happy into a fresh medium.