12 tomatoes 7

Posted by Don Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:01:00 GMT

i enjoy gardening. sometimes though i wonder if its worth it. this year is my first real vegetable garden. once thing i learned is that a garden is more like a pet than a hobby. it needs daily attention.

after 6 weeks or so of watering most every night, the tomatoe plants have about 12 tomatoes on them. tomatoes

is it really worth it to spend how many gallons of processed city water on 12 tomatoes? a grey water collection system would make more sense. i ate carrots from the garden last night. the first edible thing the garden produced. they were delicious.

as i walked back to the house, without any warning what so ever, the blackberry bushes had their first ripe blackberries. they are also delicious. neighbor blackberries

(look ma, a blog post with photos)

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  1. Steve about 4 hours later:
    I've got a few tomatoes growing too, along with some other stuff. It's watered from the rain butts, so at least costs us nothing, but does require lots of work. I wanted to comment because there seems to be a problem with your RSS feed. In Google Reader I see a whole load of old posts included with each new one. You might want to investigate.
  2. dave about 12 hours later:
    You are WAY working too hard, use plastic ground sheet or even better a plastic and PVC pipe greenhouse. Then you could just meter the water going in from your roof gutter barrel into your drip irrigation hose. I suggest buying these things up before victory gardens come more into vogue and prices go up.
  3. Phil about 19 hours later:
    Not sure what the probelm is, Don. I've got 6 plants and each of them has more than 12 - of course, they're all green still. What variety of tomato did you plant? I would suggest a variety that's well suited for our climate like Oregon Spring, Stupice or Siletz. Also, did you fertilize them and if so what kind of fertilizer did you use? I usually mix up some kelp meal and bone meal and put that at the bottom of the hole when I plant them. I give them some liquid fish fertilizer every week or so. This year I'm watering them with a bit of sea water that comes from water changes in my salt water aquarium (but you could use the real thing from the coast as well) because I heard that it supplies lots of trace minerals and helps make the tomatoes taste better and causes them to be more nutricious. (don't overdo it with the salt water, though - just once / week)
  4. mediaChick 1 day later:
    I agree...you're working too hard on your garden! Water a lot at first, then just make sure things don't get crispy and soak the ground well once in a while. It helps to start with really good dirt. My tomato plants grow so large that this year I am only growing one. It's already 3 feet wide and 6 feet tall. (Oh,yes. I will provide photographic evidence if pressed.) Let's talk dirt the next time we meet!
  5. Don Park 1 day later:
    thanks for the advice. i used no fertilizer at all. now i have a feel for how important it is. a week ago i added compost by burying some in a row along side the established plants. ive pulled up some carrots and will be mixing in new compost before the seeds go in.
  6. Phil 1 day later:
    BTW, don, I notice that your tomato plant in the picture has flowers on it so you'll get more tomatoes soon. I suspect your total tomato count will be much more than 12 by the time the summer is over.
  7. dave 3 days later:
    The tomatoes here are so good because the coastal water tables are brackish. Salt is ok in the soil, cucumbers are super easy too. You need a carbohydrate like compost and much less important for the first few years is nitrates, rotate peas or clover through every few seasons and you will be fine on nitro.
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