Lots of wind Sucks

We had a micro-cell storm go through around 3am Saturday morning. Sustained winds in the upper 20s and gusts in the upper 30s. All of that wreaked no small amount of damage to my plant.

Thus far it still seems to be growing. I have not seen any blooms yet. I am also concerned that my plant only gets direct light from about 5:30pm to 8pm. I found a good site for hanging tomato plant information. As soon as I can re-find the URL, I'll post it.

Where's Mr. Blue Sky?

Clouds.
Rain.
More clouds.
Highs around 62-63.
Its been like this for a few days.
Ugh. This is not normal for mid April in Central Texas!

Is a Picture Worth A Thousand Tomotoes?

First we have the plant after 8 days in the bag. Sorry. I didn't take any pictures of the plant while it was still in the peat pot.

Next up is a similar shot showing the plant after 13 days:

 

A decent amount of growth, I guess. I have no idea what to expect. Again, there's no yellowing so that's a good thing.

Finally, here's a shot of the underside, taken the same day as the shot above:

I Have To Stick That Where???

Ok, as of this posting I have had the plant about 16 days and it has been planted in the bag for 14, as of the 17th. I have watered and fertilized and all of that. And I have no real complaints about the Topsy Turvy system, except for this one: Getting the plant into the bag with out inducing serious trauma/damage is a royal pain. Granted, I had to whittle down my soil ball before insertion, but that hole is maybe a 2-2.5" diameter. My peat pot was about 4-5" diameter. All of the Bonnie Plants tomatoes were like that. I'm guessing this isn't abnormal.

Next, having to shove the plant into the hole, upside down, while trying VERY hard not to impact the root system with one hand, while using the other to reach in from the other side with the foam locking "washer". Is a real treat. You want to get as much of the plant as possible on the inside of the foam insert, while obviously leaving about 25-30% of the top of the plant exposed. Having the soil all around that stem will prompt root growth from the stem and improve the long-term health of your plant.

Note: when you are first adding the potting mix AFTER insertion and "locking" of the plant, be VERY careful for two reasons. First, just dumping several quarts of patting mix directly on top of live roots is a bad idea. Be gentle until the roots are covered by an inch or two of soil, all around. Then you can start pouring in. Second, since you are including a lot of the stem inside of the bag, when you are first adding mix, your root ball is sort of suspended about 4-5" above the bottom of the bag. So you need to hold the outside of the plant in such a way that the ball stays pretty much in the center of the bag. once you have soil all around it, it will stay put.

There is another company that sells hanging tomato bags. They have a zippered bag and a separate, external, wire frame. This frame is hinged and will open up. You are supposed to be able to just open up the frame and bag and simply lay your entire plant in there how you want. Then fill it with some mix, zip it up, hang it up, and then finish adding the mix. Looks good in pictures but the user reviews have been mixed.

Finally, once I got the bag about halfway full, I added some of my tomato fertilizer. I then finished off the mix, to within about 2" of the top. The last step was to water. Your mix is moist-ish, but if you dump a load of water in there all at once, it will just pour out of the drain holes. The instructions don't lie. Add this first watering, sloooowwwwly. Give your mix time to absorb the water. I took about 20 minutes to add a gallon or so. Subsequent waterings have been a bit less in volume and added a little more quickly. I will still have some flow-trough though. Either along the stem where it enters the bag, or through the drain holes.

Next up: Finally! Some pictures!

There are HOW many tomato varieties????

So I have all of my non-tomato items either picked out, or at least identified. Nice. That was fairly easy.

Now for "the" tomato plant. I envision row after row of identical plants, all direct offspring of the legendary mother-of-all-tomatoes. Ummm...no.

First I get to choose determinate or indeterminate. "Indeterminate"? Is that a tomato plant that's not sure what it wants to do? So I hit Wikipedia and see, "There are many (around 7500) tomato varieties grown for various purposes." Whaaaa??? I only want one plant. Well, maybe figuring out the determinate/indeterminate thing will help. And here is what Wikipedia says about that:

"Tomatoes are also commonly classified as determinate or indeterminate. Determinate, or bush, types bear a full crop all at once and top off at a specific height; they are often good choices for container growing. Indeterminate varieties develop into vines that never top off and continue producing until killed by frost. They are preferred by home growers and local-market farmers who want ripe fruit throughout the season."

 I was instructed that under no circumstances was the plant to reach the deck. Determinate. Check. Okay, so what kind of determinate? Well, it made no sense to worry about varieties that either were not sold around here or did not do well here. So I went to the local Home Depot. They carry Bonnie Plants brand. They had something like 15 or so different types, mostly indeterminate. I chose the Bonnie Select variety.

The plant was in a compressed peat container. If I was ground planting I would just put the entire thing in the hole. The good news was that the plant was a good size (about 8" above the pot) and seemed relatively healthy. I guess. It was green and had no obvious yellowing. The bad news was that the soil "ball" was 2-3x larger than the bag opening. So I did the only thing I could. I soaked the peat pot. Then I cut it from top to bottom in quarters. I then peeled off the sections. I then broke up/off the pot dirt around the root system until it was small enough to fit through the hole.

Up next: I Have To Stick This Where????

And So It Begins...

I have never grown any sort of edible plant. Be it herbal, vegetable or fruit. The only plants I have ever grown at all are some "Madagascar Palms" from Dunecraft, and that is still a work in progress. To be honest, I only like tomatoes "so-so". My wife bought the TopsyTurvy planter on a lark back in October and there it sat, in a box.

As it began to warm up, I figured I might as well put the thing to use, or give it as a gift to someone. I sort of figured you just got a tomato plant from "somewhere" and just shoved it in there. A few weeks later, BAM! A bountiful harvest of magically appearing tomatoes! Yes! You know, like on all of the commercials. I don't know how the tomato harvesting part will go, but the prep has taken time and patience. Hopefully it will pay off. If you keep up with the blog, you'll find out, right around the same time I do.

Getting together all of the non-tomato parts was pretty easy. I researched what sort of fertilizer is best for tomatoes. The consensus appears to favor those with lower nitrogen. That's the first number of the 3 you always see on the fertilizer packaging. In this case I looked for options with less than 10%. Any more than that and you great some wicked healthy greenery but less fruit. I chose Mater Magic Organic Fertilizer, which weighs in at 8-5-5. Keep in mind all of this is based on hanging tomatoes upside-down in a bag or pot. I have no idea how that ratio changes if you plant the conventional way. I got a traditional plastic watering can with the blunt end that has all of the holes in it. In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure that was the best choice. I can't really pour it at full speed or too much water and soil and nutrients will drain out the overflow holes. A slower pour results in this annoying backward flowing leak where the blunt cap snaps on the stem. On the other hand I payed about $4 for it. It'll do.

I bought a folding step stool that gets me up about a foot and a half. I bought 18 quarts (in 2 bags: 10qt and 8qt) of potting MIX, not straight soil. The mix assists with drainage and reduces packing. Mine had just a little bit of fertilizer mixed in. Something less than 1-1-1 so I went ahead and added some of the purchased fertilizer upon initial planting. I also used about 2' of nylon cord to lower the bag from where the hanging hook is mounted. For now I'll leave it hanging that way but once it starts getting hot and the plant has grown away from the bag enough, I'll hang the bag directly on the hook to keep it out of the hot afternoon sun.

I planted the plant on the 3rd of April. No tomatoes yet! ;-) In future posts I'll cover how I went about selecting a variety, how I got it in to the bag (a chore!) and some pictures. I'll also post on any development milestones, good or bad. I know there are a TON of blogs and websites devoted to this topic. However, I come from almost ZERO gardening experience. The reason I got those DuneCraft palms were their claim to extremely low maintenance and a love of sun and heat. Supposedly, for a fruit, tomatoes are along those same lines. We'll see.