A Little Introduction

As I wrote in my profile, my experience of gardening when growing up was reluctantly helping out in my parents' vegetable garden. Every year they would plant a large garden at my granny's house in the mountains of Virginia, and every weekend we would go there and tend to the garden. As much as I hated grubbing in the dirt, I did enjoy (most) of what came out of that garden: corn, beans (string & butter), squash, zucchini, potatoes, asparagus and (my favorite) tomatoes.

I don't remember ever eating a store-bought tomato growing up-- I guess we were just spoiled and lucky. What we didn't eat fresh, my mom canned and the stewed tomatoes we had in the dead of winter would take me right back to summer. My parents haven't had a garden in years, though, and I have never been a big fan of gardening. As the years have passed, though, I've started to miss truly fresh, homegrown vegetable more and more, and none more than my beloved tomatoes.

My husband Thierry and I have tried twice in the past few years to grow tomatoes in an Earth Box (very generously given to me by my mom) with mixed success. The first time (about 8 years ago— wow, time flies!) we were living in an apartment so the box was on our balcony. I honestly can’t remember where we got the plants (two of them) or what kind they were, but we got enough tomatoes for us although it definitely was not a great yield. I think it’s because we didn’t really know what we were doing, plus we had to fight whiteflies for most of the growing season. That's when we discovered insecticidal soap-- I much prefer organic solutions when possible.

Our next attempt was in 2007, and THAT was a disaster. Thierry did pretty much all of the plant care that year, but he does not come from the same gardening background I do— even though I never particularly enjoyed working in the garden, I at least had some experience with it. Thierry grew up in the city in Belgium and had very little gardening experience. He was a trooper, though, and really tried in 2007. Unfortunately, that was a heatwave/drought summer here in NC. We got a grand total of two tomatoes from our plants (purchased at K-mart, again no idea what kind) before the hornworms invaded. I never knew how squeamish my husband could be until he saw his first hornworm! He gave up on the plants at that point, and given the bad shape they were in I didn’t think I could “rescue” them with my limited knowledge.

Thierry was so put-out by the 2007 debacle that I didn’t even mention tomatoes last summer. This year, though, I told him that I really miss REAL tomatoes so I wanted to try growing them again AND that I would be doing the work this time around. He is very skeptical, but I don’t think he realizes just how much I want to taste a real tomato again! At any rate, because he IS so skeptical I feel like I’ve got something to prove here. Unfortunately, I remember very little of what I learned about tomatoes growing up. I’ve been doing a lot of research on the internet and although I still feel like I really don't know what I'm doing, I'm willing to give it a try.

It's going to be some work, but I'm pretty sure it'll be worth it. I'm keeping this blog so that I can keep track of what works and what doesn't, for my own future reference as well as for others out there who may be thinking of doing something similar. In the current economy, I'm seeing more and more info and encouragement on "growing your own food" so I believe that more of us novices are going to be trying our hand at gardening. It may be frustrating, but I'm sure it won't be boring!