How to fertilize tomato plants

Ready for summer! By July this space will look like a jungle!

What a season 2012 is turning out to be! By Memorial Day we had all of our crops in their pots, ready to bask in the sun. The warm spring inspired us to get our seedlings started early. We're already reaping rewards. Our tomato and green pepper plants are sprouting fruit well ahead of their usual patterns, the cucumber vines are looking mighty healthy and the lettuce is going strong. We could be harvesting tomatoes come July. Speaking of tomatoes, we've added Jobe's Fertilizer Spikes to the pots. Buried in the soil, the sticks offer the proper mix of nutrients (a three to one ratio of phosphorous to nitrogen and potassium,) last for six weeks, and help the plants absorb calcium. The point is to avoid the dreaded blossom-end rot, a black, leathery scourge that often shows up on the blossom end of the fruit early in the season and renders it inedible. Another trick is keeping the plants consistently watered. We may try mulching so the soil doesn't dry out in the heat. We've added the spikes to our pepper plants as well. Next challenge: getting rid of the aphids on our eggplants!

Our first pepper

The fertilizer spikes

Tomato complex

I knew I loved the complex flavors of heirloom tomatoes, but now I find that their deliciousness could be the result of some very complex biology. The tomato, according to this New York Times article, has 31,760 genes, or 7,000 more than human beings!

Tomato surprise



Seed packets from Tomatofest.com

 This is a season of experimenting for NYC Gardener. Every year for the past six seasons, we've planted Brandywine and Cherokee Purple tomatoes along with several other varieties like Aunt Ruby's German Green and Chocolate Stripes. Last year, we didn't even buy new seeds, opting to repeat 2010's choices. This year we're going rogue. We have skipped our standard bearers all together to try out six new varieties. We went to our favorite heirloom seed site TomatoFest and looked through dozens of descriptions for tomatoes that might be just as delicious but easier to grow. I do love the Brandywine and Cherokee beefsteaks, but they take a long time to mature, so the plants are not as productive as they could be. The fruit gets so heavy on the vines that they're at risk to the windy conditions we get on our terrace. Heavy rain often causes cracking. So, this year, we decided  to go for varieties that mature a bit earlier and grow a bit smaller. We love green heirlooms, so we chose Green Zebra, a tomato served at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse. We wanted a Roma tomato to make great sauces and the Pantano Romanesco sounded like a hearty and flavorful option. We also picked one of Tomato Fest's top 10 for 2012, the Black from Tula, a Russian import with a smokey flavor. We didn't entirely turn our backs on the beefsteak. We're trying out Neves Azorean Red, "the ultimate sandwich tomato," advertised as tasty, disease resistant and productive until a frost. The only repeat is the Angora Super Sweet cherry, which we planted a few seasons ago and very much enjoyed. Last on our list is Kellogg's Breakfast, an orange beefsteak that came as a bonus from Tomato Fest. It's said to be sweet, tangy and nearly seedless. If all goes well, we should have a bang up crop. Even more amazing, all our plants are out in their pots and basking in the fresh air, more than a week ahead of our usual schedule. So, here's to a season of change!

Tomato in the pot

Last year's leftovers

Yes, the season is heating up and our veggie plants are already in varied stages of life cycle, with tomatoes, cukes and peppers in the ground and mesclun already producing copious greens. But believe it or not, we're still enjoying last year's harvest - from our freezer. The other night we pulled out a still delicious cherry tomato sauce that is perfect over bowtie pasta with olives, feta, capers and pine nuts. (Click here for the recipe.) I also gobbled up the last of my goat cheese tart slices a couple of weeks ago, another awesome treat. And the other day we made pesto chicken with sauce we saved from the fall. We even have a few more containers where that came from, which should take us right up to this year's first harvest!

Grow light sparks tomato seedlings

Tomato starters under our new grow light

Seeking stronger tomato plants we decided to invest in  a grow light this season. We got this simple Hydrofarm JSV2 2-Foot Jumpstart T5 model on Amazon for just $50. We put our little seedlings under the light and took off for a 10 day trip, giving our cat sitter instructions on how to adjust the system as the plants grew taller (and of course, to keep them watered.) When we came back the seedlings had sprung up like weeds. Though they're still not as fat as green house starters, they're not as spindly as they have been in the years when we depended on natural light.
The next step is "hardening off" the plants, or getting them ready for the outdoors. To do this, we put the seedlings outside for a couple of hours before and after work and on the weekends. This helps them adjust to strong sunlight, chilly temperatures and windy conditions. It will keep them from wilting or going into shock when we move them to the big pots on the terrace. I am really looking forward to a healthy crop this year!



Seedlings growing strong



The gardening work out

Years ago, I was in an all girl band with a fine bass player, Laura McDonald. These days she's a fitness guru and she has some pretty timely tips about how to make gardening good for you in more ways than just by eating your veggies. All that weeding and planting is really great exercise, she says. Any gardener can get a sense of that from the aches they get after moving pots, lugging soil and lifting watering cans all day. But Laura breaks it down to the muscles we stretch and tone with every bend and twist and the calories we burn. Adding a few squats and dips can make an even bigger impression on the figure. Read her blog post to find out how to make working in the garden a real work out.

White grubs attack my blueberry bush

Hardy Jersey bush



Stunted Blueray



Oh no! I found yet another insect species in my garden recently. We added blueberry bushes to our crops last summer. Last week, I was poking around the pots, wondering why our Jersey bush is far more robust than the Blueray. And there in the soil of the Blueray was a wiggling worm-like critter. My first instinct was to ignore it. After all, creepy crawlers are abundant on our terrace. Somehow worms, ants, centipedes, bees, lady bugs and a host of other harmless insects find their way to our 20th floor urban garden. But then, I thought about those nasty horn worms that attack our tomatoes and decided to take a closer look. I plucked the bug out of the pot and as I did, I noticed another. And another. And, well, you get it, a regular infestation. So, I stomped the ones I pulled from the soil and stuck the last one in a yogurt cup, brought it inside and found the culprit on the computer. White grubs. They eat roots and live on a three-year cycle. We're in year two. The last year in the cycle is when they become Japanese beetles. Getting rid of them requires chemicals that could harm bee populations. I'm not going there. Another option is a bacteria called milky spores that kills white grubs when they ingest it. But it can take years to entirely eradicate the grubs. I've been inspecting the pot and pulling out dozens of them. The good news is that each day I find fewer. The bad news is that I've got to dig deep into the roots where they attach themselves for a feast. If they're not gone in a few weeks, there's a good chance we'll just dump the plant and dirt and start over with a new bush. The last thing I want to see next summer is a terrace full of beetles that eat everything in sight!



Culprit: White Grubs eat Blueberry roots



Gruesome collection

How to get rid of aphids



Aphids shimmering in the sun



Last week I got a real unpleasant surprise when I was marveling at the buds already blooming on my rose bushes. Upon closer inspection I noticed some shiny spots on the leaves. And then, looking further, I saw clumps of green blobs, shimmering like emeralds on the stems. I went to pick at them, and squish, squish they went. Ugh! Aphids. Loads of them. With the unseasonably warm temperatures, bugs are coming out in force. There is no alternative but to attack! I quickly got out my spray bottle, put a few squirts of dish soap in it and filled it with water to create a sudsy solution. I then lathered the leaves liberally, especially at the tops where the aphids were concentrated. The simple solution does a lot to get rid of the dreaded insects that will sap the life out of your plants. I followed up with a few more spray-and-washings and then I used Safer Tomato and Vegetable insect killer, which is good against beetles,caterpillars and aphids. I know a rose bush is not technically a vegetable, but I have gotten positive results nonetheless. I have a feeling this season is going to be full of such unwelcome surprises. My advice for gardeners: be vigilant; be very very vigilant. Check your plants daily. Infestations happen overnight.  

This terrace is for the birds

Morning doves in the afternoon

Springtime always brings out the birds. Though morning doves (left) visit us all year long, last week brought the enthusiastic singing of a pair of mocking birds. Anyone who reads my blog regularly will recall my posts about how those chirpy critters stole my blueberries last summer. I think they stopped by just to see how the bushes are doing -- which is actually quite well, already full of buds. We have our bird netting ready for this season, though the birds are pretty good at poking their beaks in and plucking out the berries. They are nothing if not persistent. Another spring visitor, a handsome blue jay, stopped by at about 7 a.m. in the morning. I was startled by his boisterous caw. He took a break on our railing and just had to crow about it, I guess. The Jays usually head further north by May, and so, they don't compete with the mockingbirds for berries. One of nature's small mercies...


Blueberry bush blooming

 

Urban farming on a grand scale

Urban farming is getting a major boost in Brooklyn as a giant operator makes plans to produce tons of fresh food. Bright Farms will create a massive, 100,000 square foot hydroponic greenhouse on the above rooftop in Sunset Park that will yield a million pounds of produce! It's not alone in farming NYC. Green rooftops are sprouting like, well, lettuce, carrots, radishes and tomatoes. Read the New York Times article for more details.