Tomato experiment ends with 8 cracked

Tag : tomato
Tomato experiment ends with 8 cracked

Beth BottsChicago Tribune
Released : Sunday, September 07, 2008 4:00 AM
Sep. 7--It was like finally ending a bad marriage.
I'd known for a long time it was a mistake. But I couldn't let goof the memory of the high hopes I'd started with. I had investedtoo much time and struggle (not to mention money) to cut my lossesand walk away. Other people's were doing fine, so giving up on minefelt like failure. I kept thinking if I just hung on a whilelonger, I would finally feel the joy of a ripe tomato.
In the end, though, it was just too much. Watering those plantsthree times a day -- before work, when I got home from work andagain at bedtime -- was just ridiculous. I was afraid the tomatoeswould fall on somebody's head before they were ripe enough to pick.The only one that did ripen was at best mediocre.
And the yield? Eight hard, small, green tomatoes -- at a cost, infancy containers and fertilizer, that dwarfed the breathtakingprices for heirloom varieties at the farmers market. So finally,one September day, I snapped. I snapped those tomato stalks rightoff and dumped them in the compost.
We garden writers like to preach about "right plant, right place."If you understand your conditions and choose plants that aregenetically suited to do well there, the scripture says, gardensare much easier and more enjoyable to care for. When I've violatedthis commandment -- morning glories in the shade, pulmonaria insun, Russian sage in wet soil -- I've always been sorry.
But as places for tomatoes go, this could hardly have been morewrong: Three stories off the ground, upside down, in a hangingplanter that didn't have space for a fraction of the root system ofa mature tomato plant, with a "self-watering" reservoir that heldonto the water forever, becoming a sky-high breeding ground formosquitoes and algae.
So why would I grow tomatoes in upside-down planters? Well, I haddwarf cherry tomatoes ('Red Robin') doing quite well in a bigself-watering window box with some herbs. Since most of my gardenis on the north side of a four-story apartment building, the backporch, outside the kitchen door, is the only place with enough sunfor tomatoes -- if I can get the plants above the porch railing sothey aren't shaded by the balustrades.
I considered Earth Box self-watering containers but couldn't figureout how to elevate such big, heavy pots that high.
Then I saw these upside-down planters in a catalog, with a supposedself-watering feature. The photo showed thriving tomato plantsgrowing out of the bottom and climbing up the sides to make a bigfruit-studded ball. The niftiness factor overcame me.
I plunked down about $25, including shipping and handling, for two.I installed hanging brackets on the porch posts and filled theplanters with high-quality potting mix and some of my own goodcompost, with the plants ('Husky Red') sticking out of slits in thebottoms. Then I placed and filled each reservoir -- basically anopen plastic dish that sat on top, with a wick that was supposed tolead water down into the soil.
Nope. No water traveled down that wick, or if it did, the soilscorned it. The water (with some water-soluble tomato fertilizer)sat in the sunlight and soon was full of lovely green algae andmosquito larvae.
I eventually gave up and poked pinholes in each dish so the watercould drip down into the soil. But by the time the plants reached adecent size -- bending up some, but mostly just sprawling all over-- their roots packed the planter, sucking up a gallon of watertwice a day and still wilting and turning brown. Meanwhile, thepinholes clogged daily.
So I stabbed some serious holes in the dishes with a paring knife.That got more water to the roots -- if I filled the reservoir threetimes a day.
The bedraggled, wilted, yellowing plants managed to set eighttomatoes between them -- cracked tomatoes, because of constantswinging between wet and dry. Those eight tomatoes are now lined upon my kitchen windowsill. If they ripen, fine. If they don't,there's always sauteed green tomatoes. But I'm done.
I'm not done with tomatoes, though. Next year: serious, large,large, rectangular self-watering containers, with lots of root roomand the reservoir on the bottom, as in my herb window boxes.Elevated somehow so the plants grow above the porch railing (milkcrates?). And with a cage, so the vines don't sprawl and split.
They'll probably blow over in the first thunderstorm.
ebotts@tribune.com
To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to thenewspaper, go to http://www.chicagotribune.com. Copyright (c) 2008,Chicago Tribune Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune InformationServices. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com,call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, orwrite to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Provider:
Knight-Ridder / Tribune Business News / Chicago Tribune
Keywords:
Agriculture , Food & Beverage , Agriculture , Green Grocery , Food & Beverage Production , Produce , Agricultural Crops , Canned , Jarred & Boxed Foods , Commercial Horticulture , Vegetables , Vegetable Growing