Getting Ready

Our soil here is utter crap (clay, full of rocks) that would literally require a pickaxe to break up, nevermind then having to work a ton (literally) of compost and other good soil amendment into it to get it in shape for gardening. Instead of in-ground gardening, I've purchased Easi-lift growbags to use as growing containers, which I’m going to put out on our deck. I bought them from Peaceful Valley and they shipped them very promptly. The bags are a reasonable price, but Peaceful Valley did have a minimum order of 5 bags. So, I have one bag left over and I’m trying to decide whether to pick up another tomato plant at my local nursery, or something else. Thierry is voting for something else, but I’m not sure what to choose— he doesn’t like cucumbers, squash or eggplant (all of which are, in my experience, very prolific so just one plant should give us plenty of veggies).

I still have the Earthbox my mom gave us years ago, but according to my research the tomatoes should do better in these bags which are large (15 gallons each) and will therefore allow the plants to grow much larger root systems. I may use the Earthbox for something else— maybe some herbs I’m sprouting (more about them another time).

As for the plants I chose, I really want to grow heirloom tomatoes. My mom grew German Johnsons a couple of years ago and even though they were “high-maintenance” in her opinion, the flavor of those tomatoes was unbelievable. Also, I like the idea of growing varieties that have a history, and weren’t developed in a lab somewhere. After more internet research, I ordered four heirloom tomato plants from Laurel Garza (super friendly, and answered the phone herself!)— Carmello, Goose Creek, Marianna’s Peace, and Paul Robeson. It looks like these are fairly heat-tolerant (it gets mighty hot here in Concord) and should do okay in containers. When they arrived, they were packed very carefully and were in great shape for having traveled all the way from California! Shipping costs were a bit pricey, but it was definitely worth it. I would not have been able to find these varieties at a local nursery, and the way they were packed was truly ingenious; I wish I'd gotten some pictures as I unpacked the box they came in. However, I *did* take some pics of the plants not long after they arrived and they are beautiful!



The Marianna's Peace plant is the tallest and the bottom leaves were yellowing a bit because the seedling was outgrowing the pot! All of the plants, though, as you can see were in great shape and I was just itching to plant them.

Since I am using the growbags I needed some sort of mix with which to fill them. After reading the Dave’s Garden website for a few days, I liked the sound of coconut coir instead of potting mix (although I could have blended the two)… I’ve never enjoyed getting my hands dirty with actual DIRT. So, I ordered enough of the coir from InstaGarden (run by a fellow known on Dave’s Garden as BocaBob) to fill the bags.

After a trip to my local nursery, I came home with two types of fertilizer—one for foliar feeding and a granular tomato fertilizer. I also got some “blossom set” spray, which is supposed to help increase yields by preventing blossom drop. That occurs when the weather gets hot, which it definitely does in this neck of the woods! After that, I had the most important things I needed to get the seedlings "bagged up" and, hopefully, growing like crazy.

Next post – transplanting the seedlings!