I got in a specially breed type of tomato that is for growing in pots for small spaces, i started six seeds, and i have six plants, five big ones and one wee one that is still growing but no where near the same as the others, and i will for sure be saving seed on these.
They needed their last pot up to hold them over till planting time in the spring garden and i am growing out one in a five gallon pot to see how it does in that way as well, to compare inground vs pot only. They were in flower, and to be honest i should have gotten them split out and potted up a few weeks ago but hey life get busy.
They were started in 1 inch cells, and transplanted into sets of two into gallon pot, but it was time to move them up, one went into a 5 gallon pot, one went into a three gallon and the rest went into 2 gallon. The one in the 5 is my trail pot and will stay in it all summer, the 3 gallon will go to the kitchen garden, one or two of the two gallon will be at the plant sale and the rest will go into the soil directly.
They were very ready to be moved! Look at those stunning roots,
These are recycled pots, they were washed out and given a slight soak with a dilute vinegar blend, and trust me by reusing pots from year to year, it saves you a lot of money, i might not like plastic pots but i will use them over and over again. I have not yet tried the fabric grow bags? Have you used them, do you like them? what do you like, what don’t you like, what kind of life span do you get on them, i have larger pots that i have been able to use for the past 5 to 10 plus years and i have been known to stop and collect garden pots out of the recycling after may long weekend plantings
Frugal Tip, at least here in my part of the country and in many places in Canada, May long weekend is one of the biggest planting weekends, the garden centers overflow with folks buying their pre-starts and the very same week, or the next depending on what your county does weekly or biweekly, a quick drive in town (not so much country) will show you stacks of pots in the blue bins. This is a perfect way to stock up on 2, 3, 4 inch pots, and if the person was careful, flats, sadly most of the thinner flat often get cracked, broken when they are getting the plants out so there are always less of them.. Then you might hit the jackpot and find a stack of larger pots, those tend to be found in the newer build areas as they are the ones more likely to be planting trees and bushes
But as you can see the one drain hole has a bit of damage on this big one and those are some very big drain holes that will let soil out in my plant area, not something i am keen on.. I just used some clean dry straw in the bottom of my pot, do not use hay, you can get creative here or you could be potting up in a greenhouse and just don’t care if a bit of soil spills out, it will get cleaned up and added back to the soil bin etc.
Yes, i stuffed it down a bit more before planting, now it was time to prep the plants, which meant taking off the flower clusters, i want the plant focused on settling in and it will be back in bloom soon enough, i wanted to deep pot the plant even more solid rooting and that means pinching off the bottom stems
This how the plant came out of the pot, leaves to the soil line, if you look up the stem to the left you can find the V split, that is what i was looking for, i then pinches off all the leaves/side stems
and then potted it up to that very top line, that whole stem will soon enough push out more roots and add to the strength of the plant in the pot and help it be more productive though this coming garden season.
My trimming pile continued to grow as i did each plant but it will be well worth it. All of them are happily settled into their new pots, watered in and back under their grow lights, i am looking forward to lots of yummy cherry tomato’s in our future.
For small scale gardeners, with limited space or who are extending their gardens by planting in pots, have your bought and grown the different commercially available breed seed for pots and if so was it worth it compared to using regular types..
So far, i am very impressed with the compact growth on these, they are thriving, now we will see how they compare to hold up for a full growth season and of course, do the tomato’s taste good! I mean can they compare with a sweet one million, which is one of my favorite cherry tomato’s but it can grow well over 6 feet plus and its massive
While these were costly seeds and they only had ten in the pack, their germination rate was outstanding, and for someone needing two of them per year, that pack would give at least a three year supply plus after the first year, you could seed save and never need to buy these again, peas, beans and tomato’s are some of the best seed saving things to start with
Its important to remember that despite what the tic toc says or all the fancy stuff you see, growing some of your own food can be done frugal, does it look better in a fancy pot with organic soil on a wheeling stunning wooden stool, maybe with a fancy glass self watering bulb part art part function.. if you can and want to go for it. but you don’t need to.. a found pot, dirt mixed with compost, heck dirt with homemade found compost tea will get the job done and done well!
Just another Day on the Farm 