Tomatoes planted

Animal Spirits, Christy, and Sarah - welcome, and thanks for following my blog!

After 7 weeks of pampering inside the propagation systems, the time finally arrived for the tomato transplants to be put into the garden. I was certainly ready for it, because growing transplants from seed is always pretty demanding - and quite stressful too....The hardening off process was quite easy this go around, and that's certainly welcomed. Anyway, I wanted to show a few of my plants that's been moved into the garden.

Photo below - here's one of my 8 Cherokee Purple plants that is being grown in the 4x8 box that held pumpkins and watermelons last year. My main reason for doing this is to isolate them for seed-saving later, as well as crop rotation...I know my plants are pretty little, but i'm just glad they're healthy! Hehe...As usual, I gave them just a little bit too much water, as can be seen from the leaves - but the intense heat inside the shed during the warm days lately caused me to have to water them at least every 3 days. They're in Mother Nature's hands, now.....

Photo below - here's a Kellogg's Breakfast in one of the 31 gallon swc's. Those little fuzzy things on top of the soil mix is something that has fallen from one of the hickory trees surrounding the property. We've got tons of hickory trees, and it's easy to gather a few fallen limbs for adding to the smoker....

Photo below - here's another plant in one of the swc's located by the shed. I really don't remember what kind it is - maybe Giant Oxheart? Anyway, the totes are labeled - so at least I'll know for sure later. These 4 different swc's also allow me to try 4 different fertilizers on them. There's nothing like experimenting!

Photo below - Here's a mixture of tomato plants that will be sold to people at my place of work. I was late about potting them up, but I reckon they'll be just fine. Just a little tall for my liking, as I like short stocky ones......The hot temps inside the shed are to blame, and I wish that they'd been started a couple of weeks earlier. One thing about it - a person learns something new every year that they grow transplants from seed.

Photo below - Here's a little Cherokee Purple that was really late being potted up. I just didn't have any room left under the lights to do so.               

I'll only grow about 100 next year, because I just don't have the time - or room for potting up more than that, and keep everything under lights too. Needless to say, being ambitious has it's disadvantages sometimes. Hehe...Anyway, i'm just glad it's finally over.
As can be expected, I've lost some plants throughout the propagation cycle. However, due to uncontrollable circumstances that were presented to me this time around - I lost a BUNCH! I'd say at least 100 -150....I'd rather not go into it..........

Anyway, that's it for this year...

Take care, and happy gardening!

EG