Big update!

Our tomatoes are growing at an aggressive pace. We had to skip out on tying them for 2 weekends in a row and they really got out of control.  It took several loops of yarn to bring them back into their rows. All the tomatoes are producing at this point, though some more than others. We have had a handful of ripened sungold tomatoes. They were quite delicious, though, they were also on the small side. Still waiting on our first ripe full size tomato. Maybe next week!

Our garden since March 23

Finally going into the ground!

This Saturday, we built 15" deep raised beds out of cedar planks. We inserted 8 ft stakes that are pressure-treated to have support structures for a Florida weave pattern. The ground underneath was dug out 1 spade and mixed with compost. Then the beds were filled with a topsoil/garden soil mix. It was about 2 days worth of work...sooo tired. Then the tomatoes were planted about 2 feet apart. 1 cup of Tomato-Tone and 1 cup of earthworm castings went into each planting hole, well mixed. Then the beds were well watered. We also planted some herbs and greens in the ground next to the beds.

Below are some other pictures: (top going clockwise): Green giant blossoms, Sungold blossoms, Tomato seedlings reading to go into the beds, two (2) Prue's planted next to each other because their foliage is supposed to be sparse, a fused superbloom from Aunt Ginny, the "herb garden comprising of purple sage, English thyme, Russian kale, Curly kale, cilantro, and a stick of Thai basil.

Hardening off seedlings!

Here they are on our balcony on the first harden off day. 

Each day they get a different thing: Shade for a few hours, then overcast sun for a few, then overcast sun all day, then sunny all day, then sunny all day + overnight, and they're ready.

Toward the end you can tell they don't like it because our apartment doesn't get a lot of sun. So they are reaching a lot... Can't wait to get them into the ground! Going to give away about 7 of them. 

 

Gratuituous picture of kitty with a young plant

 

JD's Special C-Tex plant, getting big (4-6" tall now). Almost ready to be hardened off. 

***Note, don't actually let your kitties eat tomato leaves because they are toxic to cats. Good thing Iroh doesn't like the smell of tomatoes***

Growing under the lights

Younger seedlings get their own tray because they are propped up closer to the lights. They are: Lucky Cross, Sungold, Cherokee Purple, Virginia Sweets, Earl's Faux, JD's Special C-TEX, and Prue (replant). You can see one of the fans blowing under the lights to remove some of the heat.

Older or taller seedlings are kept a bit further from the lights. They are Bull's Heart, one Sungold, Aunt Ginny's Purple, Brandywine Cowlicks, Brandywine Sudduth's, Cherokee Green, one Prue, and Green Giant. There is a larger oscillating fan that is blowing across the top of all the seedlings but is not shown in the picture.

The 2014 garden plot!

This is where the tomatoes will go. Over the winter we amended the soil with compost and chicken manure, inoculated it with earthworm castings and planted some Austrian winter peas as green manure. At the end of February we're going to roto-till the entire thing and add some more compost. Probably we'll grow 14 tomatoes, 2 squashes and 2 eggplants. The support system is going to be a Florida weave. Super exciting!

Update 2/8/2014

The tomato seedlings are doing much better after being potted up with the Tomato-tone and from being grown in a cooler room. They are now growing large leaves, which are a dark green color. The seedlings are much bushier than before. The plants with the yellowed leaves are growing new green leaves. Even the ones with curled leaves are growing normal leaves (Bull's heart). Cherokee purple has gotten some strange crispy leaves, which die eventually. Maybe it's wind-burn? None of the other plants have this problem. Opalka was the only one that didn't really recover, so I killed it. It's probably the one I don't mind losing the most out of the bunch. Seems right on track to plant in early March!

Update 2/4/2014

The seedlings were growing too fast... so to slow them down I didn't fertilize for a couple of weeks. This was clearly a mistake. It made the leaves from the older plants start to yellow quite a bit, and not from over watering (which is usually the cause of the yellowing). I usually let them dry out and wilt a bit before watering. Anyway they obviously needed some food.

So we transplanted them into 18 oz blue cups with Pro-Mix seedling mix and 1 tablespoon of Tomato-Tone in each cup. The older ones are starting to do better.

We also opened up the windows so it'll be cooler and put two fans on them, to stop them from growing too fast, which sometimes causes leaf curl but also you get plants that need more space before you're ready to put them in the ground.
Anyway, after the potting up (even the younger plants got potted up to the blue cups), all of them are doing better. The younger ones are looking great, and probably are at the stage where they need the fertilizer (their cotyledons were yellowing.) Once the cotyledons fall off you can start fertilizing because those things are the source of nutrition for the young seedlings until they get old enough.

Here's some pics:

All the seedlings under lights. Most are doing pretty good, you can see the yellow leaves on a couple of the plants up front. There were some whose leaves got burnt from touching the lights, also recovering now that they are further. I read that the leaves can touch the lights, but apparently these lights are hotter than the ones other people use because the leaves that touched it fried to a crisp.

An older Brandywine Cowlicks. You can see the yellow leaves from being starved but it seems to get some green back now that there is food available. This is one of the worst looking plants of the lot. The root systems of these plants will take a little time to get back to speed again because during the potting up process some of them get damaged (which is all a part of the process)

An older Cherokee Green that is still doing good. This is one of the larger seedlings. Nice and short internodes, and stocky stem. Some yellowing of the older leaves. For each potting up, some older leaves got picked off so that we can plant the seedlings deep to get better root development.

A younger JD's Special C-Tex (foreground), very healthy and stocky  and an older Prue (background), which is supposed to be droopy and wispy. Prue and most of the older plants are still doing good. I was warned that Prue always looks like it's about to die but that's just the way it is. I noticed the same thing with Bull's Heart and Opalka, the other heart/paste types.

Three types of leaves

 

The seedlings are doing great, very healthy looking and growing fast. I just wanted to take a quick picture to document the different types of leaf habits commonly found on tomato plants.

From left to right: 

Regular leaf - these plants should be generally sturdy and upright. Most tomato plants are RL  (shown Cherokee Green)

Potato leaf - these plants are robust and can be more resistant to diseases and environmental conditions. Some PL varieties can grow very large and there are PL versions of some popular RL varieties (shown Brandywine Cowlicks)

"Wispy" regular leaf - usually oxheart or paste varieties, the finely-serrated leaves have a tendency to droop. Sometimes mistaken as being unhealthy, these plants may produce very well even though they look weaker than other plants or are more susceptible to leave roll/curl (shown Prue).

So far so good

The seedlings are growing well inside their red cups. This picture was taken like a week ago, they are quite a bit bigger now. Most likely they will get repotted again into even larger cups. There's a fan blowing over them so they get nice stocky stems. Generally we fertilize them with 1/8th strength kelp and fish every other week.

The heart shaped varieties like Bull's Heart, Opalka and Prue always look really wispy and half-dead. We just have to remind ourselves that that's normal :)

Getting sorted

Things were getting out of control in the seed box so we bought some 1 dram Wheaton glass vials to store the tomato seeds. Works well for any small seeds, including carrots, coriander, lettuce, basil, etc.... The names are written on top with a silver Sharpie! Yay for organization!

Potting Up.

We did our first potting up of our seedlings today. They are growing like champions.

So many sprouts!

The tray of tomatoes are looking pretty great and healthy. Had another seedlings come through today as well.

The Twins

Replanted some seeds

Today I replanted 5 seeds of Earl's Faux, which never came up, 3 seeds of Aunt Gertie's Gold, which came up and mysteriously died, and 4 seeds of Prue.

Both Prue seeds came up but I accidentally killed one of them by decapitation while trying to get the seed coat off. I really wanted two Prue's. Next time, I should just wet the seed coat and let the plant pull it off in a few hours, but I was too impatient.

Planning to plant JD's Special C-Tex in place of Cherokee Purple, which never came up, and Lucky Cross to replace Opalka which came up but I'm not overly excited about.

Seedling Light Setup

Here is a couple photos of our light setup. There are picture hangers on each wooden post and the light has holes that align with them. We can then move the light up gradually as the seedlings grow. The idea is to keep the light source as close to the plant as possible to make them not grow too tall and reach. Ideally spending more time growing thicker stems and growing roots.

All but 3.

So far, all but 3 tomatoes have come up. The are all looking pretty healthy and they are under the lights now. We have the light on an 18 hour timer.

These three below are the stubborn plants so far. Maybe it is time to re plant their seeds and try again.

• Cherokee Purple
• Earls Faux
• Brandywine - Cowlick's

Growing and...

First Tomato Sprouts of the New Year

Our first seedlings decided to sprout today (3 days after planting)! Top photo is the Opalka and bottom is Aunt Ginny's Purple.

Seedlings, Jan 1, 2014

Starting our seedlings off right. 14 seedling cups and about 2-3 seeds per cup of each variety.

Our treasure box of seeds.

2014 Tomato Grow List Include:

• Brandywine - Sudduth's
• Brandywine - Cowlick's
• Green Giant
• Cherokee Green
• Cherokee Purple
• Black From Tula
• Sungold
• Virginia Sweets
• Aunt Gerty's Gold
• Prue
• Aunt Ginny's Purple
• Earls Faux
• Opalka
• Bull's Heart