EXCEPT for the 12 tomato plants I decided to buy at the Santa Clara Master Gardeners plant sale in the spring. WHAT WAS I THINKING!! In my defense, I had an accomplice. My next door neighbor :-) Of course, she has a family of 4 to feed!
Paul has been a very supportive husband on this project. Rather than planting the tomatoes directly into the ground (since we hope the ground will be landscaped sometime before winter) we decided to do a planter/bucket/earthbox style garden. We lovingly, and appropriately, call it the "homer bucket" garden! Paul drilled drainage holes into 10 beautiful, orange, home buckets... We filled them with a mix of potting soil and horse manure compost... and away we went. Naively, I just assumed nature would take its course. A little water here, a little water there.. At first, the plants grew like weeds! Tall and leafy... yay, me! I rock at this gardening thing. Seriously, how hard is it :-) But over time, the leaves and plants went from a rich green to a yellow-ish color. They were producing fruit, but the plant itself wasn't looking too happy.
In contrast, the two plants we planted in an "EarthTainer" - think EarthBox made out of rubbermaid storage containers - were flourishing. Ginormous, green, leafy plants - with absolutely no tomatoes.. hmmm, no tomatoes..
So, I searched the internet and consulted my gardenweb sources. They recommended fertilizing the tomato plants as the nutrients leach out of the soil with watering. So, I started feeding the "homer bucket" garden with fish emulsion and tomato food. All organic, of course! Have you ever smelled that fish emulsion stuff - peeeuuuuu.. Lexi LOVES LOVES LOVES it :-) The plants rebounded and have been producing abundantly..
In contrast, the EarthTainer plants still are not producing. Well, that's a bit unfair. I've had to sacrifice at least 20 tomatoes due to blossom end rot. I've tried adding calcium to the water, but it hasn't seemed to improve the situation. And, I don't see new tomatoes cropping up. Paul created a float valve watering system for more even watering of this setup, and we are crossing our fingers.. the jury is still out on this setup.
So far, we've harvested probably 15 pounds of tomatoes from the "homer bucket" garden. I have been counting the number of tomatoes rather than the pounds as was suggested by my very smart husband. Next year I'll be smarter about it and measure by weight!
So far we've made Pico de Gallo, tomato pizza, caprese salad, spaghetti sauce, pasta with tomatoes, caprese salad, more pizza, caprese salad, chick peas in a red curry sauce, salad with tomatoes... you get the picture! Anyone need some tomatoes!
Here are some pictures of our project, enjoy!
Write-on,
Faith
