4/26 Start Day

4/26 denotes the start day for 8 lucky tomato plants.  Unfortunately we have potential tornado, high winds, and hail coming in tonight (4/27), so I am faced with how to keep them safe.  I think I will place a 1 gallon pot over each plant and weight it down.  We will see.

Back to last night.  I got home from work and got my troops together to work on planting.

I planted the following:
2 x Black Krim
2 x Ace 55
1 x Borgo Cellano
1 x Mortgage Lifter
1 x Green Zebra
1 x Amish Paste

Right Bed (2 Black Krim, 2 Ace 55)

Left Bed: (Green Zebra, Amish Paste, Borgo Cellano, Mortgage Lifter)

My little helper

Yes I am using Pink Strings

(near) Completion of the Raised Beds

Update as of Easter Weekend 4/24/11


Friday 4/22/11 I bought 1/2 yard of PLANT MIX at LUXURY LANDSCAPE and shoveled it in.

Saturday 4/23/11: I went to Gravel Springs Nursery and bought 1 scoop (supposedly .6 yd) of Organic Potting Soil.  I finished the beds out.  Placed the weed screen.  I am deciding to use the string method of training my tomatoes this season to see how that goes.  I had some extra lumber lying around so this is what I concocted.

I will hang my stringers from the rope attached to the 2x4s.  Hope my neighbors don't mind. hehehe

And the Pièce de résistance (as created by Arden and my niece Claire)

Easter Sunday 4/24/11:
I am continuing hardening my tomato plants.  I had them outdoors bright and early at 7:30am.  They are still out there in a a nice shaded spot.  Hardening plants can be tricky or easy.  I have yet to find out.  Some sites say 2 weeks, a blog poster gave me a time table which spanned 4 days.  I am going to see how they are this evening.  That will be my decision to keep them out overnight or return them indoors.  I will have to say most are doing well.  I have about 3 which are struggling.


I did a count and I am at +/- 64 plants.  Yes 64. 
Here is the list:
Black Krim:   2 
Ace 55:   7 
Borgo Cellano:   11 
Lillian Yellow:   8 
Mortgage Lifter:   1
Hartmans Yellow Gooseberry:   6
Amish Paste:   2
Green Zebra:   3
Green Grape:   4
Pink Oxheart:   3
Anna Russian:   13   
Yellow Pear:   5


I do not plan to plant all of them as stated early in the blog.  I am only planting about 12-14 plants.


Some Notes (to self):

• Start early, about 8 weeks before last frost
• Success on germinating with peat pellets on top of dryer.  Laundry room is warm and dryer top is warm.
• USING A SHOP LIGHT IS OK.  Keep light CLOSE (very close to plants)
• A fan keeps plants from getting leggy (thigmotropism), so does being close to the light
• Do not transplant any until they have true leaves, Cotyledon leaves are not true leaves
• Its a hobby, be patient

Based on results this year, I will figure out which plants I want to grow next year.  I definitely wanted to do the Mortgage Lifter this year, but thats not looking too good.  I am leaning towards Rutgers or another juicy big red.

Getting Closer

Just some basic shots of plants I re-potted last night.  I had a few plants which had 2 in each peat pellet so I separated them and re-potted them into 16 oz Solo cups.  We will see if they survive.  I am about 2-3 weeks from putting them outside.  This weekend I intend to fill my raised beds and get them ready for planting in the coming weeks.  First is to shovel in the plant mix soil.  Then use some landscape fabric to cover.  This will allow the sun to heat up the soil.

I still have some strong looking leggy plants.  I will trench bury them when its time.

The Accounting for Round 1

Ok.  So I did an accounting of what I have from my first attempt:

Anna Russian x 2
Pink Oxheart x 2
Green Grape x 1
Green Zebra x 2
Hartmans Yellow Gooseberry x 3
Black Krim x 1
Lillian Yellow x 2
Ace 55 x 4
Borgo Cellano x 4
Mortgage Lifter x 1 (Actually 2 plants with true leaves.  I will try to transplant soon to get 2)

Thats a total of 23 plants from round 1 out of 36.

Round 2 is actually working out as well.  More info to come.

Its a Go-Kart!!!!

Its been a week or so since last post.  Since then my plants are growing strong.  True leaves are forming.  I have sprouts in the box of 24 I did.  I have put those in a very sunny window sill since I am running out of room on my desk in the garage where the light is.

My clear solo cups are sprouting like crazy.  I have moved most of them into the garage where the light is.

I have planted some other veggies & herbs to germinate, so we will see how they pan out.

So I have moved into ground preparation.  I am using a long strip of my back yard to plant this garden.  Thanks to Vandy, I borrowed his roto-tiller (It's really a Go-Kart).

I followed some online advice and set the tiller high to chop up the grass layer.  I raked out the grass.  Then I lowered it and went to town on the dirt.  This is first phase of site preparation.  Next I need to buy the special planters mix at Luxury Landscape and till that into the earth.  Setup my beds, fence it out. (Gertie, our boxer,  was already into the patch with a face full of dirt. Dirtie Gertie.  The last thing I want to hear coming home one day is "Gertie got into your tomatoes".  So chicken wire here I come.

I will post some pics of the plants later.  Here is some of the the site.