Even though I said I would cut back on the amount of plants we sell, well, that hasn’t exactly worked out for us. Somehow, even after culling varieties that I either didn’t like or couldn’t find a source for, I ended up with more of everything!

(I have included some pictures of various stages and techniques we are using. Nothing to do with what I am talking about but it’s fun to share.)

Seed catalogs are like “adult material “for gardeners. You know what I mean. The pictures and descriptions are so enticing. This year, I have 386 varieties of tomatoes and 165 varieties of peppers. I have decided to put almost every one of my tomatoes in a gallon pot. Yes, it is more, but they are almost 2 months older than the 3 ½” size and are much more mature. In our climate with such a short growing season, that is important if you actually want to have some tomatoes on your sandwiches.

The biggest reason is that no matter what I do, I always have tomatoes left over at the end of the season, and they don’t look good. They are an embarrassment. I take pride in my plants, and they do well for about a month once they are transplanted into a smaller pot with fresh amended soil, but inevitably, they start looking like &^%&^$#! There is nothing I can do to make it better. I’ve tried. I could throw fertilizer at them all day long, and they won’t respond. The problem is the lack of real estate. In a gallon size, they have room to roam, but not so much with the smaller size. Plus, by this time, it is getting hot. and that means they start drying out very quickly. Plants as a rule don’t like to be rootbound and their little root hairs dry out. Not a pretty situation.

We have had to put some in bigger pots in an effort to save them, and we have to charge less since they aren’t as mature as the ones we put into gallon pots earlier.

These are some of the changes we are making this year. We are looking at different types of flowers, (some which are testing my patience to germinate) more education in that I am going to try and have more information on best practices for gardening utilizing larger signs, info sheets. I also want to have more workshops on things like container gardening, the basics of gardening (I tend to forget there are a lot of newbies out there who really don’t know much about planting) and flower gardening. Of course I’d like to share what I know about tomatoes and peppers.

I am looking forward to this season and can’t wait to see you out back. If you have any qustions, go to my facebook page and message me. http://www.facebook.com/thetomatolady