That time again...

Tonight I planted some tomatoes in my basement.

• Roma
• Amish Paste
• San Marzano
• Yellow Pear (a pear shaped cherry)
• Red Cherry Large Fruited
• Sungold

Just a few favorites so far, and I will no doubt regret packing them so close together soon. I only had 5 Amish Paste seeds and those did well last year. I'll see if I can get a few more. Also need some black cherry, loved those.

It's a start!

Last year I was swimming in tomatoes from the Quaker community garden. Literally hauled out coolers full, made sauce, gave some away. I'll update with more pictures later. Maybe. Probably.

Oh, exciting news, I have a 20' x 25' plot this year! Room for loads of tomatoes. As before I think I'll grow the full sized tomatoes at the community garden and the cherries at home, they seem to do fine in huge pots.

Day 196: Fin

Project complete! Overall I'd say it was fun, but not very productive. For the amount I spent, and the amount of time, and the electricity, I'd say it was nowhere near worth it. but lets take a look at the numbers. Today I picked 4 oz of green Fourth of July Hybrids (plus two Red Cherry, Large Fruited of inconsequential weight). Also Friday night I picked 3 Super Sweet 100s, I'd estimate less than 0.25 oz. So that makes the grand total....

• Fourth of July Hybrid - 6.5 oz
• Red Cherry, Large Fruited - 2.75 oz
• Super Sweet 100s - 9.5 oz
• For a grand total of 18.75 oz or 1 lb 2.75 oz.

I beat the pound mark, if only just barely. How about total counts...

• Fourth of July Hybrid - 10
• Red Cherry, Large Fruited - 9
• Super Sweet 100s - 75
• For a grand total of 94 fruit.

Missed the century mark. So that makes the tomatoes $12.05 per oz. Compare with supermarket prices (currently $3 a pound) - $0.19 an ounce. And that's not counting electricity. While my tomatoes were much cheaper than gold at $1117 an oz, they were uncomfortably close to silver which closed Friday at around $16.50 an ounce.

Here are some pictures of the final teardown.

The overgrown tomato thicket.

Up to the rafters!

Last red one, hiding.

Lots of green Fourth of July Hybrids.

Empty Super Sweet 100 branch.

Rootball Montage! Clockwise from top left - Burpee's Summer Choice, Big Boy Hybrid, Fourth of July Hybrid, San Marzano, Super Sweet 100 Hybrid, Red Cherry Large Fruited.

Headed to the compost heap!

Wow, looks bare in this corner now.

Last harvest.

94 tomatoes and one bouquet.

I'm glad I tried it, and the best result that came out of it was that we have a fantastic seed starter setup for this year's outdoor garden. And those pesky deer that sent me underground? Lets see how they like an 8 foot fence with an overhang. I figure it'll either keep them out or will be a good source of venison if they break their necks trying to get in. Watch this space for more on the outdoor fenced in garden coming about mid March.

In the meantime, I'm going to try a new project later today for the next couple weeks that I'm going to document here. Not exactly garden related, but should be interesting.

Day 184: Dregs

3 Super Sweet 100s, 1 Red Cherry, Large Fruited. Guesstimate 0.5 oz.

Day 175: Couple big ones

Two Fourth of July Hybrids, 1 red cherry large fruited. Both tasty. 2 oz total.

Day 167: Dribs and Drabs

Another decent harvest today. 18 Super Sweet 100s (total of 2.5 oz) and 4 Red Cherry, Large Fruited (total of 2 oz). Also of note, harvested 17 Super Sweet 100s (total of 2.5 oz) on Jan 24 (but couldn't get into the blog page). My devotion to watering has faded, and the tomatoes are getting a little dry. Which is ok, there's not much in the way of flowers left. Here's photos of the Jan 24th harvest and today's.

Jan 24

Jan 30

Super Sweet 100s on the left, Red Cherry, Large Fruited on the right. Both very tasty.

Day 154: First Fourth

So far the harvest has been 19 Super Sweet 100 tomatoes, weighing in at maybe a total of 2 oz. Today I harvested a whopping 0.75 oz Fourth of July Hybrid tomato. The taste test - it was good. The Mrs. thought the consistency was not great. Honestly it was nothing to write home about. I'll still give it a try in the garden this year, it's not fair to judge it solely on the one basement tomato.

Some photos.

A cornucopia of tiny tomatoes. Fresh from the basement. Hmmm, that doesn't sound too appetizing.

The health inspectors were back, this time they measured the plants. The tallest reached from floor to ceiling, about 250 cm.

The Fourth of July Hybrid. Word is they grow to 4 oz in a sensible garden. They missed that mark by a factor of five-ish.

Day 147: More tomatoes, yum.

Five more tomatoes consumed. It's getting a little chilly downstairs, was 58 F. I don't think that's doing them any good. There are only a couple new flowers on 1 one of the plants at this point. The Super Sweet 100 is really doing pretty well, far better than the rest.

You can see one of them even split, I've been neglecting them a bit. I didn't detract from the taste any, boy it was yummy. The Mrs. enjoyed them as well. Definitely Super Sweet 100 is going in the outdoor garden in the spring. Total harvest this time, 1 oz, bringing the grand total to 1.5 oz.

The Fourth of July Hybrid is working pretty hard to give us a few tomatoes as well. Not quite ready for the table, but looking redder.

In related news, the tomatoes definitely seem to be winding down. While plans for the spring outdoor gardening seem to be picking up speed. I think once the tomatoes are done (maybe a month from now? Maybe two?) I'll start up a log about what's going on in the outdoor garden. The initial intent of the downstairs garden was to keep the deer away, and so far it has been successful. I have seen some hoofprints on the basement windows, but they've been no bolder than that. In the spring, we'll be using a fence to keep these hellspawned creatures of evil at bay. So anyway, I think I'll continue writing about various gardening exploits here and keeping track of produce production and so on. Probably about Mar 15 the downstairs will transition to seedling starter area full time.

Day 143: First fruit

Well, that's a little deceptive. The first fruit was eaten on Sunday (Day 140). They all came from the Super Sweet 100 plant.

More fruit will be ready soon. But currently those tomatoes cost about $80 a piece :)

Day 133: Red, we have red! Well, yellow at least.

Well, finally we have some tomatoes turning yellow. After 4 days without water, even (was out of town). Heh, maybe that's the secret. At any rate, finally have some produce. take a look!

Day 125: Heavy Pruning, Lots of Growth

Still waiting on ripe tomatoes. The biggest tomato was heavy enough to bend the stem it was on. Actually, it's a cluster of three tomatoes, the biggest about the size of a golf ball.

The tallest vine has reached the ceiling (Super Sweet 100s). They seem to want to keep growing up past the lights.

I did a thorough watering and a moderately heavy pruning - maybe all this extra growth is taking energy away from making big ripe tomatoes.

Day 117: Tomato Time Lapse

Click for:

Tomato Time Lapse Movie

Artist's Rendition

Day 117: Just a photo. Lotsa waiting.

Here's a close up of a couple of my babies.

Day 115: Tomatoes apparently grow slow when they have insufficient light

The tomatoes overall look pretty good, although at this point they have reached their maximum height and are brushing up against the lights. I've done my best to lop off the tops, which was hard to do, since the had buds on them. I feel like I wasting tomatoes. Anyway, the Super Sweet 100 has brown on one set of leaves, but looks decent overall. Loads of tomatoes, I'll have to do a count soon. Some of the leaves are brown and crackly at the tips. I've been watering fairly frequently, on the assumption the good drainage won't let me overwater. Every other day or so. I've done some pretty hardcore pruning near the bottom of the plants and on any branches that don't look so hot. I've had a few branches snap recently, which doesn't seem to kill even that branch, but I do need to tie them up.

Anyway, here are some picture of the tomatoes, with a penny for comparison.

This branch is hanging down pretty precipitously. I'm predicting I will be kicking myself for not supporting it when it snaps off, probably soon. Super Sweet 100s.

More Siper Sweet 100s. These guys are growing incredibly slowly. But they look good, so I won't complain.

Red Cherry, Large Fruited. These guys seemed to start slower than the Super Sweet 100s, but they after bulking up faster.

Fourth of July Hybrid. The biggest tomatoes so far, but a far cry from their purported full-grown size of 4".

How long until I savor a tomato from my basement?

Day 105: The Waiting Game

None the the tomatoes has ripened yet. The largest is a Fourth of July Hybrid that's slightly larger than a cherry tomato (grows to 4" supposedly). There are many cherry tomatoes on the cherry tomato plants and they are growing quite a bit larger, but not full size yet. Here are some pictures. First, the flagship:

And some of the cherry tomatoes...

Day 98: 35 Tomatoes and Counting

Current counts:

• Big Boy Hybrid: 4 flowers
• Fourth of July Hybrid: 5 tomatoes, 9 flowers
• Super Sweet 100 Hybrid: 24 tomatoes, 37 flowers
• Red Cherry, Large Fruited: 6 tomatoes, 29 flowers

I would like to get a scale so I can measure how many pounds of tomatoes we actually get. Ok, maybe ounces is more appropriate.

Here's what the hardneck garlic we planted a while back looks like.

Day 97: Taking Forever!

I guess it's a side effect of the insufficient light, but the tomatoes are taking forever to swell up. I've kept them well watered. They're just growing slowly. But growing nonetheless. Someone at work proclaimed, "You can't grow tomatoes indoors, there's not enough light." Incorrect! Although they're certainly not thriving the way the outdoor non-deer eaten ones did.

Day 92: Calamity and Chaos

So we're getting sprayed for termites. Which unfortunately takes place in and around the underground garden. My assistant tried to be helpful and moved three of the plants out of the basement in advance of the pest guy coming. In the move #4 (Big Boy) got broken about half way down the stem. My staking was sufficient for stationary plants, but didn't hold up well to a move. I suspect that that plant is done for. Although the stem isn't broken off, there is a break. I guess we'll see if it comes back.

And it turned out the pest guy couldn't come today, so it's not happening until tomorrow. Spoke with the guy and he recommended covering the plants. So I put up a tarp around them. I'm hoping it will keep the bulk of the poison out. At any rate they claim the poison won't hurt the plants at all. We'll be sure to wash the tomatoes before using them.

Here's what the setup looks like now, heh.

So the bad news is I've probably lost one plant. But at least the rest are battened down for the termite spraying storm.

Day 89: Three Months In

So, day 89, almost three months in, and my labors are starting to bear fruit. I counted a total of 18 tomatoes on three plants ranging in size from the head of a pin to about the size of a dime. In addition to the protomatoes, I counted a total of 60 flowers on four plants. I only counted flowers where I could see at least a smidge of yellow. The breakdown:

- Big Boy Hybrid: 2 flowers
- Fourth of July Hybrid: 4 tomatoes, 8 flowers
- Super Sweet 100 Hybrid: 10 tomatoes, 30 flowers
- Red Cherry, Large Fruited: 4 tomatoes, 20 flowers

Day 87: A Cornucopia of Tomatoes

This one is bigger than a pea.

Flowers give way to fruit.

This one is substantially larger than a pea. Maybe a third of the diameter I would expect from a cherry tomato. Although this plant is the Fourth of July Hybrid, so it's supposed to be 4" when mature. In addition to this one, the two cherry tomatoes have visible fruit on them, and the Big Boy Hybrid is not far behind.

Day 86: One.. Two... Three... Three Wonderful Tomatoes, Ah-hahaha.

Here are some quickie photos of my tomatoes, which now number THREE. The largest is smaller than a pea, so I'm not making salad plans just yet.