Monday, July 7, 2008

I spy with my little eye - a tiny green tomato

It's been too long since I've posted, but lots has been going on in my garden! First of all, we finally got hot weather and sun (I know, not this weekend) and the plants are taking off! We've got tiny tomatoes on our cherry and our Charlie's Green tomato plants. Our Japanese eggplants are growing like crazy and the pepper plants are busting out. The basil is big and bushy and our mint is growing strong too. The parsley isn't as healthy as I'd like it to be, but I did some pruning today (for our salad) so that might help it get moving.
We also finally got our drip irrigation system in place, so when we get out of town on the weekend, our veggies will be hydrated. No more calling on friends to babysit...
The system works with a timer, a plastic tube that attaches to the outdoor faucet,a bunch of feeder tubes and the adjustable drippers that are inserted into the soil. We got all the parts at The Drip Store, at dripirrigation.com. (Respond to this post if you want details on our order! I'll be happy to help you get set up...)
Now comes the hard part, waiting for the veggies to ripen -- August feels like a long way off! And of course, hoping the plants stay healthy. This year, I'm feeding them Miracle Grow tomato food every week or so to avoid blossom end rot and the other leafy diseases we've been plagued with in past summers, partly due to a lack of soil PH balance. I hope the Miracle Grow will do the trick.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds to me that someone should use their management skills and coax some more output from the tomatoes. Instead of pinching off the early ones, you should have probably sat down with them and had a nice one-on-one chat.
My grandson and me are already enjoying our deck tomatoes (I have to constantly stop him from picking the green ones).

Anonymous said...

I'm not much of a gardener (as in NOT AT ALL a gardener, my husband is the one with the green thumb) but I love the recipes.
I guess I'll have to take my chances and resort to store-bought salmonella-laced tomatoes to try the recipes because my husband's deck grown tomatoes are the size of peas right now, I'd only have enough sauce to cover one meatball.
Good luck with your terrace garden!

Eileen said...

To be fair. The tomatoes (picked) were larger than peas. Actually larger than golf balls, but smaller than tennis balls. I can't remember the variety that I got but I am assuming that they are perfect, just like my kids (ha)!
P.S. The cherries are exactly the right size.

urbangardener said...

I can't believe you've got tomatoes already! Are you east coasters or in some warm weather state?? My husband does a little pinching too. I'll have to get him to cut that out...

Anonymous said...

We live in Queens. We have the two plants in a terracotta pot on our deck. The deck gets full sun and I keep the plants in a southeast corner (furthest away from our pool). I did use Miracle-Grow soil. I do pinch off some of the shooters, but other than that I just water every day. My biggest concern is my over-anxious grandson and the raccoons that visit the deck to drink from the pool.

urbangardener said...

Sounds like a sweet setup. We don't have raccoons on the 20th floor, just spiders, hornworms and other small pests...I think our plants are a little behind schedule this year because of the cold spring - we didn't get the seedlings outside until June...