A patio gardening adventure

I've never been much of a gardener. I tried growing a garden a while back in the ground & it grew more weeds & rabbits than it got me food. If I recall correctly I wound up with a couple of peppers & squash. That was after buying an electric tiller & spending lots of time prepping the thing so I didn't exactly find it 'worth it'.

I guess I could have planned better. That was at a time when I was disappearing for a week at a time on a regular basis & not really giving the plants the attention they deserved. I'd come home & find thigh high weeds & rabbit-damaged food. This time I'm growing in pots & I'm around most every day so maybe I'll have better luck. After a successful winter cannabis grow I'm emboldened to try growing food again. I think I learned some stuff.

Either way I decided to keep it cheap. I'm re-using the soil & pots from a winter closet grow.

The tomato plants right after transplant



Early Girl, Beefsteak & Mortgage Lifter

I've managed to keep them alive for a few days now, but am wondering if I'm treating them badly. They aren't looking as perky as they did right after the transplant. I also added some yellow & green bells.



This is after treating them twice with a neem oil solution. I figured the plant store was an excellent place to bring home bugs & thought that would help. I've also been foliar feeding a weak cocktail of Bio Grow & Tiger Bloom. I've done this twice now later in the afternoon. The nutes are a bit old though. Maybe something has shifted?

I'm going to test runoff tomorrow & see if pH is in a good range.

I'd also considered trying the V+B that I use for cannabis, but am not sure this is a proper mix for the tomatoes. I'm still learning about their needs. I am reluctant to spend any more money on them as this is supposed to be a penny project.

I've crudely constructed a makeshift cart out of an old trebuchet & appliance dolly that I use to rotate the plants during the day. That gives me right around 8 hours of direct light. Being on the Colorado Front Range it's also intense light. It's also very dry.

The cart also helps manage patio space. My patio is kinda dinky and the new plants share the space with a generous grill. The cart lets me maintain functionality of the patio.

I'll try to stop in with regular updates. Please feel free to chime in with any questions, concerns or comments.

peace & cheese

feature

As I'd hoped, I think the plants just needed a little time to get adjusted to their new homes. Everyone seems to be getting pretty well settled in. I've never watched tomato plants this closely before. Holy cow they grow like weeds! Glad I didn't wait any longer to put in the stakes.



I already have 5 tomatoes! Okay, so one was already there when I bought the plants, but it has tripled in size. It's on the Mortgage Lifter plant. The 4 others are on the Early Girl. You can see a few of them in the photo.

The cart is still a work in progress but is still making life a lot easier for me. I like to think that keeping them elevated helps with oxygen flow to the roots as well (pots are porous) and maybe helps with bug control.



I'm on the lookout for wheels & a platform, but this is working for now.

I'm still foliar feeding every day - a mix of Bio-Grow, Tiger Bloom & CalMag. I'm also misting the plants with water in the morning & afternoon. It's a super dry climate here & I feel sorry for them

A soil feeding is coming soon & I'm thinking of switching over to V+B & +Size as they seem to have a great NPK ratio when combined. Then again I like the results I'm seeing already so who knows? Decisions, decisions.

I tend to do my celebrating as necessary & not as prescribed. The fireworks last night were cool, but I live in a touristy area and the crowds can get old. Sometimes it's nice to camp out at home. That gave me a chance to take some new pictures!



I was wondering if the Beefsteak was gonna do anything as it's just been getting huge without making any maters. Then last night I happened to notice these.



I didn't get around to taking the pictures 'till this morning, but they at least doubled in size overnight



It's so cool watching stuff grow.

Early Girl's been puttin' out for a couple weeks now. I have no idea when I'll get to start eating these, but I'm looking very forward to it.



The peppers aren't looking so hot though



I'm not sure what's going on with them. There was one pepper forming (I think) last week. A really cool flower formed then started getting darker. The next time I looked at it it was sort of blackish. I touched it & 2 silverfish came slivering out. I hate silverfish.

I saw chiggers on one yesterday. There's some funky black & white stuff forming at some of the nodes.

Funny thing is, once they started looking sorta crummy, they started growing rapidly & branching out. So I'm gonna play it by ear I guess & take it day to day.

That's all I gots for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Inventive…. I like the wheel base. Keeps you flexible incase the light doesn't hit the plants just right as if were in ground . Then you'd be stuck

and what happened to the chilis did something useful grew out of them?
your tomatoes look most successful to this point i would say
nice pictures taken carefully,

dont hate those silverfish they are not harmful to your plant
but do a good job in ingesting mold, just keep them away from your books
they literally swallow those