I love
tomatoes – real tomatoes – not those tomato avatars they sell at the
supermarkets. When I was a kid living
in the Mississippi delta, tomatoes grew the size of softballs and were so acidy
they would burn your lips if you ate them whole. They tasted like TOMATOES.
The clones
we find at the supermarkets look like tomatoes, they have the color of
tomatoes, they feel like tomatoes and when you slice them they appear to be
tomatoes; but when you eat them: nothing.
When I think
about it, they don’t actually look right: they are too perfect and too shiny
and can sit on the counter for two weeks without going bad – Frankenstein tomatoes.
Our old
house was in the woods – constant shade.
Our new place is open to the sun. After purchasing some disappointing
tomatoes from the supermarket this winter, It dawned on me that perhaps I
should plant a couple of tomato plants this summer – grow some real tomatoes.
Off to my
new go-to DIY resource: YouTube.
Wow! Stick a plant in a grow bag, water it, and
tomatoes abundant. Sounds easy.
First things
first; I order six grow bags
.
The ‘plant your
garden in container’ sites say that using commercial potting soil is too
expensive and that it is cheaper to mix your own; so I purchase a couple of bags
of garden soil, a couple of bags of dehydrated cow manure, a large bale of peat
moss.
From Burpees
online catalog I order three tomato plants.
YouTube says
I need bone meal, copper fungicide and fertilizer to insure healthy tomatoes
While
shopping at Walmart I see a seed planting flat with 72 planting pockets. Why not plant some squash and cucumbers and herb
seeds – makes sense.
I had no
idea that seed packets were so expensive, so I only purchase six along with a
bag of potting soil.
I will need
some plant pots to transfer the seedlings from the planting flat.
You Tube
suggest you put grow bags in some sort of container that can hold a couple of
inches of water, because grow bags dry out so quickly. Walmart on-line has eight red dishpans that
are the perfect size on sale as a lot – and delivered to the house.
I hadn’t
figured where I would keep the planting flat while the seeds germinate – no window
in the house will accommodate it. While
at Tractor Supply I find a green house for sale for $39.00 – seems reasonable.
There is a
problem; if I put the green house on the lawn the grass will fill it in no
time. Land scape cloth is available at
Walmart for $16.00, but you also have to buy the pins to stake it to the ground
for $6.00. What the fuck: in for a penny
in for a pound. I should be able to
cover a 10x12 area to plant my container garden.
I still need
a trowel and a watering nozzle for my hose.
Will probably have to go back to Tractor Supply.
What the hell is happened to me? All I wanted was a few tasty tomatoes.
the Ol’Buzzard
AHAHAHAAAHAHAA!
ReplyDeleteDavid is the same way. He loves the steak tomatoes that I'm growing in burlap bags that I sewed together. They hold about 5 gal of soil and I have them sitting in the back part of the courtyard where the morning sun hits them but the hot afternoon sun is sparse. So far I've gotten 7 juicy tomatoes off of it for David. I have about three at last count that will be ready in a few days and when I checked it last, there were about 13 new blooms getting ready to open. I feed the plant with Alaska Fish Emulsion as fertilizer. Great stuff. You should try it.
Hahahahahahaha, yes, that's how it goes. "Think of all the money you'll save growing your own veggies!" LOL
ReplyDeleteLMAOROTF, well, you got some REAL yet very expensive Veggies now didn't you tho'? *Winks* I bought some spendy Bird Seed for my Wild Birds, which I spoil rotten, they shit out some of the Seeds and sometimes get messy while eating and now I have all kinds of great Herbs and Veggies growing Wild everywhere here at the Mini Farm compliments of our Feathered Friends. I have Dill growing around the Pool area, some Mustard Greens and Lettuces growing in the Dog's Run area, Sunflowers galore, it's so much Fun and much cheaper than buying my own specific Seeds and all the paraphernalia it would require. Here's a tip if you do want cheaper Seeds tho', I buy Organic Heirloom Produce, eat half and just let the other half decompose in a Pot, the Seeds from it sprout and I end up with replicated Produce every time.
ReplyDeleteThe tomatoes, and most produce, in stores is bred for shipping, to look pretty, and picking by machine. Uniformity is key - so much easier if it's all the same size for packaging, ripens a the same time, etc. to support the move to mechanization. Taste is an afterthought, if thought about at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the giggle on the gardening. Been there, done that, and am trying really hard not to go down that road again. I'm not sure how long I can resist - every year raised garden beds sounds more and more appealing.
You might think about keeping an eye out for the little kiddie pools on close-out sales at end of the season, I hear they work pretty good to put the grow bags in as well. The little ones, not the big ones, so you can reach the middle.
Too funny. Tanya plants between 150 and 200 tomatoes every year. Sometimes they don't yield well but in 2021 they went all out. We have 50 litres of tomato juice in the root cellar over and above what we ate, what we gave away and what we froze. Now we are buying them in the store and they taste like your description
ReplyDeleteomg..that made me laugh...hahahah
ReplyDeleteYou can grow tomatoes. I know you can. I have done it myself. It is a process . Try some of the weedier types, like yellow pear or sweet 100.
ReplyDelete