One Year Later...

Well, true to form, I essentially abandoned this blog last year when things got "hot & heavy" with my tomatoes. Unfortunately, I say "heavy" not in terms of yield; just indicating that I got overwhelmed. My plants started having issues with discolored leaves and other stuff that appeared to me to be disease that I never was able to clearly identify. I did get pics of that, but they are on my other laptop and I don't feel like hauling it out to post a few pics that will just bring back bad memories. :o)

I did manage not to totally lose any of the plants until the very end of the season. One of the things I did successfully that helped was I took cuttings from the plants that seemed to be having the most trouble. That's one cool thing about tomatoes-- you can pinch off a sucker, stick it in some potting mix or water and it'll grow roots like nobody's business.

After I rooted the cuttings, I learned to make eBuckets via Dave's Garden. One of the folks I met there, Lane, came up with the design after some folks started speculating on and easy and cost-effective way to make a self-watering planter. After some brainstorming about using 5 gallon buckets (like the ones paint or pickles come in) and colanders, Lane came up with a design that works beautifully! Here are the directions for the eBuckets. My husband I made 4 of them last year, I put cuttings in 3 and had more tomatoes off of those 3 plants in just a few weeks than I got off the parent plants all season before that.

Too bad I didn't plant them up, though, until late in the season... it was August, I think, so I got a few ripe ones before first frost, at which time I then had LOTS of green tomatoes! Good thing they will ripen after picking, so we did get to enjoy them even after the frost took the plants.

This year, I'm even more ambitious. Thierry made me 6 more eBuckets so I now have 10 in total. I have planted a different heirloom plant in each one, plus two cherry tomatoes in my old EarthBox. The only one making a repeat appearance this year is Marianna's Peace-- those were my favorite tomatoes last season, and she withstood the mystery disease fairly well.

Here are pics I took of my plants yesterday:







I'm hoping that this year I can be a little more laid back than I was about everything last year. Now that I know a little more about what the plants can handle, I'm hoping I won't go into a tizzy with every little leaf spot or discolored stem. I guess we'll find out!