Tomato Plants from Seedshow to grow tomato plants from seeds

“You know what this sandwich needs?”, I would always say to my wife when she made BLT’s. “A real tomato, THAT”S what it needs”. I could never make her understand that these red bags of water, that the grocery store called, “tomatoes” wasn’t the real thing.

“Well plant your own, since you think you’re so smart”, she replied one day. I thought to myself, “Why the heck not”. “My Mom’s a great gardener, surely I must possess some of that skill”.

So began the odyssey of our tomato patch.

I’m one of those fathers who employs his kids in all family chores. I figure the labors cheap, and besides my parents did it to me. My girls (ages 5 and 3) were drafted to be my crew. We went down to the Home Depot to scope out some plants.

“What are we doing Dad?”, they asked. “We’re planting tomatoes”. beamed their father. I’m was gonna teach the girls, the value in home grown vegetables. By the time we got home I’d spent $112.95 in tomato plants, fertilizer, potting soil, and big pots to put them in. (Did I mention we lived in an apartment?)

The terrace was nice and sunny. We got all the plants put in. My oldest daughter made a scarecrow out of an old shirt of mine, a stick, and a Styrofoam wig head that my wife gave her. It looked scary enough to me, so I set it right smack in the middle of our tomato patch.

The next morning I stepped out to look over my tomato plantation, only to find cats had dug up 3 of the plants, and what looked like bird poop on the scarecrow. “What the heck”, I yelled. “There’s varmints in the mator patch!” After work I got some netting at the military surplus store. They had tons of it for $50.00 bucks.

6 weeks go by. Nothing…

Finally one early Saturday morning. (I mean early) My daughter comes rushing into our bedroom. “Daddy, daddy, we got a mato”. “Thats nice, go back to bed”. I moaned.

“DAD!”

I got up and went out to the terrace, and sure enough, there was a tiny little tomato. I was choked up with pride. My little girl and I just staring at our little tomato. We knew that all the hard work and sacrifice was going to pay off. Considering that all but that one plant had succumbed to one disaster or another. A bird had even made a nest in our scarecrow. We named it Charley.

Through the rest of that summer, we babied and nurtured that freaking little tomato. Lord love me it was the only one to grow on that stupid plant.

Finally the day came, and we picked it. I took it inside, and my wife sliced it up for BLT”s. I took my first bite, and gloried in the marvel of fresh ripe heaven. “Now that’s what a BLT is supposed to taste like.”

That tomato cost me $162.95 but I swear it was worth it.

Finding the perfect place for your garden, a spot where your plants will get the most benefit from the sun, is the first step. If the location you choose gets direct sunlight for most of the day, choose vegetables that will do well there. Tomato plants, cucumber, and eggplant do well in direct sunlight.

Now comes the hard part, getting the soil ready for planting. You will need a good shovel, and some elbow grease. Map out the garden in your mind, and start turning over the soil. You should dig down about six inches, turning the dirt over, and breaking up the large dirt clods. Make sure the soil is free of weeds, and finish turning over the dirt in all of the spots where you are going to be planting something. After all of the dirt is turned over, mix in some fertilizer and potting soil, and turn the mixture over until you have a nice area, ready to receive your new plants.

Before you start planting, take a minute to think about the plants, and how they grow. Tomato plants, egg plants, and other taller vegetables or tall plants, should be placed in the back of the garden. Since tomato plants require stakes or cages to help them stand tall, you should put them in the last row. You can purchase these items at any Home Depot, or garden store. Some plants, such as cucumber, squash, or pumpkins, can spread out quickly, and require a lot of room to grow. Smaller plants, should be placed in the front of the garden. This layout will not only look nice, but will allow the plants to receive the most benefit from the sun.

When you are ready to plant, you should dig small holes approximately three inches down, and spaced out enough to allow growth. Add a little potting soil around the plant when you put it into the hole, to help it grow. Make sure the dirt is filled back in around the roots of the plant, to give it a nice start. Also be sure to leave enough room between the rows of plants, so you will have access to them when they are grown.

After all of your plants are firmly in the ground, give them water. Make sure the plants have enough water to start growing, but be careful not to over water the new plants, or seeds, as this can cause the seeds to float away, or grow in a spot where they weren’t meant to grow.

You can personalize your garden in lots of different ways. You can add stepping stones to form a pathway between the rows of plants. This not only looks nice, it gives you room to walk between the rows of plants when you are ready to harvest, or weed your garden.

Your garden can be as simple, or as elaborate as you would like. The main thing is to consider the location of the garden, the amount of sunlight the area receives, the type of plants that will do well in those conditions, and the amount of time you have to spend on your garden. With a little work, you can have a garden to be proud of.

Every year for the past many, many years, I’ve had this almost fanatical propensity to grow the biggest, reddest, juiciest and most abundant crop of tomatoes in the entire world. Or at least, in the neighborhood!

In some neighborhoods, the biggest house was the chief motivating factor at becoming the overall neighborhood King. Other neighborhoods relied on the most expensive car, the smartest or best looking children, Super Bowl tickets. To me, it was always about the size of your tomatoes.

So, every year, just like this year, I set out to strengthen my manhood, to grow the biggest, reddest tomatoes in the entire world. I would feel the stinging pains of defeat if my tomatoes were judged the best only in the entire Western Hemisphere. I started out where the most proficient growers begin, Home Depot.

The last time I grew tomatoes from seed, I planted them early, around January, and emptied a full package of seeds into a small bread loaf pan and put it on a special table at the sunniest window in the house, facing south. I planted the seeds in a mixture of the finest loam and potting soil, with so much Miracle Grow that the soil turned Green. Then I watered them faithfully, 4 times a day.

Every night I would cover our germinating, neighborhood conquering monster seeds with our finest dishtowel so they wouldn’t get cold. Then one morning, my wife asked me what I was growing. “Tomatoes,” I said proudly! She told me I had better look again, and after I picked out about 10 fully ripe mushrooms, I decided I was probably watering them too much. I probably needed to get rid of the towel too!

Two days later, I had about nine thousand rabid tomato plants in one very small bread loaf pan. I knew I had to do something drastic because they needed to be replanted outdoors, fast, and mid-January in Northern Connecticut was not the time to plant summer tomatoes. In the room with the sunny, Southerly exposed window, I had what looked like overgrown elephant grass growing down the table legs and germinating little elephants in the carpet. The tomato delta had to go, and I would have to resort to plan B.

Until God would again bring His torch over Connecticut and thaw out the ground, I would take the time to further study the life cycle of the perfect tomato. And, in May, I shoveled out the car and drove back to Home Depot.

The first thing I learned is what I like to call “The Tabloid Theory”. Growing good tomatoes is all about the “dirt”. Real dirt! Loads of compost and

Growing Up Wild

“Tomatoes? Why on Earth do you want to grow tomatoes?” questioned my dad when I revealed to him the real reason I asked to go along in his weekly Home Depot run.

I then rambled for about ten minutes about the necessity to improve our diet with organic food while saving the planet from global warming. He nodded once in a while to show his comprehension, after all there is not much a father can say to a determined twenty year-old gardening enthusiast.

One hour and ten dollars later, I was the proud owner of a couple of flower pots, ten pounds of the best budget dirt we could find and two bags of seeds. Somehow I had decided that chamomile flowers would look great beside red ripe tomatoes.

While I was irrigating the pots for the first time, the smell of wet dirt reminded me of my late grandmother and the garden she kept until the last day of her life. She would sit there in her rocking chair for hours, completely silent, until the heat from the day succumbed to the fresh breeze of the early night.

I often wondered why my grandmother liked to spend her days like that when she could choose to do other things, from watching TV to redesigning the garden in which she spent more than four hours everyday. Apart from the rough cuts my uncle made to all the bushes every change of seasons, the plants survived with little care. Most of the flowers looked as if they were about to burst from the pots, and the branches of the fig tree were so crooked and apart that they were used to stretch a laundry line.

Two weeks had elapsed and now I was fastening my short tomato plants to sticks so they could grow upwards. I sighed while I thought about my failed attempt at planting chamomile, which was cut short since someone in my family had accidentally broken its pot.

My grandmother had also lost many of her precious plants through the years. Loose footballs and spontaneous bicycle races had taken their toll. While mothers and aunts chastised the responsible grandchildren, my grandmother would usually take a look at the mess of broken clay, dirt and crying preschoolers and then ask: “Are you kids okay?”. Later she would reminiscence about her plants while laughing, “Sure, I loved my yellow rose bush,” I once heard her say “Its color was great but it was actually what killed it. You see, it was only yellow because my little grandson David peed on it every time he had the chance.”

Not so long ago, my six year-old cousin Geraldine was helping me to take care of my tomatoes, which now grow in a humongous pot I found in the back of the garage. Two smaller ones lay nearby and soon they will be filled with colorful margaritas. While we watered the plants, mud started forming underneath our feet. We laughed and played with it until our hands looked as if they were made of melted chocolate. “I had never played with mud!” she said to me while I cleaned her up. “I used to when I was your age; it was like heaven to me.” I said absentmindedly.

It was only then when I finally understood what my grandmother found so interesting in her garden.