Since an obelisk pretty much was out of the question, I figured the next best thing would be to glue a rose to the cover over the tomato's former home. I mean, that's just as good as an obelisk, right? Now, onto other things. The original tomato is still not red. I put some coffee water in the reservoir of the Aeorgarden, I may do it again the next time I change out the water. I don't want to do it too much. We'll see how that goes. Also, the Aerogarden website says something about pruning branches so the plant has more energy to expend on ripening the tomato as opposed to putting energy into growing those branches. Plus, the darn things were growing up into the lights. So, some pruning was done. I even pruned some branches that had flowers on them! The were right up in the lights. I hope that was OK. I've got a lot of tomatoes, so I figure these plants have as much as they can handle right now. Here are some pics of what is going on with the tomatoes now. The pic in the top right very clearing shows the original tomato. Actually, I think I made a mistake and the picture in the lower right might be that same tomato instead of a different one. Oh well. I'll take more pics soon. The point is, I'm finding more of them every day. I don't want these things to have a blowout. Can they get too many tomatoes? Will the plants have to expend too much energy to grow and ripen these things? I guess I'll have to read up some more. Well, that's basically it. I'm having a little trouble concentrating. I usually listen to classical while I'm writing, this time I tried the "Jazz Focus" playlist instead and it's pretty distracting. Back to classical! See you next time, happy tomatoing!
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We have our first casualty. RIP little tomato plant, we hardly knew ye. This little one seemed to be doing better. It started looking more hardy, so I pruned back some of the branches of the other plants so it could get more light. It didn't work. As you can see in the images, I removed it and had to cover its spot. Just making a cover didn't work, so I made a little circle of black-colored cardboard, covered that with clear tape, and used the basket and dome to hold it in place. I'm sure there's an easier solution, but I'll figure that out later. Now, on to the good news. We have a lot of tomatoes. In fact, these pictures were taken yesterday, and since then I've noticed even more little tomato buds. I've also noticed these white hard nodules at the base of the plants, which after a little research, I've determined are root nodules which are often a result of ...... DUN DUN DUN overwatering. ??? This is a hydroponic system..... So, more research will be necessary. That's where I'm at now. That first tomato doesn't appear to have any desire to become an actual red tomato. How long does that take? Not sure. Hopefully the plant isn't so stressed that it won't ripen. I also have to apologize for the fact that I didn't get this out yesterday, the appointed Tomato Day. I wasn't really feeling up to it. At least I'm only one day late.
Happy Tomatoing!! Well looky there! The tomatoes are popping up all over, it seems. These are some pics from earlier this week. The largest picture shows tomato #3. But wait! There's more! But first, a little housekeeping. Just this morning, the red light for the plant food was blinking, so I took the opportunity to clean out the bowl part of the Aerogarden, look at the roots, put in the plant food, and switch out the quilt on the table. Things didn't look quite as slimy this time. I didn't let it go for 30 days like last time, though. Oh! This is a picture of the bowl after I cleaned it, by the way. I was SMARTER this time, as I cleaned out the bowl, put a LITTLE fresh water in, put in the plant food and swished the water a bit, then carried the bowl to the tomato table with only a LITTLE water in. Much easier. SMARTER. They seem to be holding up fairly well. I know what I'm going to do next time to improve the situation. Everybody says that I should take the plants and transplant them outside. I'd rather just see what I can do with them in the Aerogarden for now. I still have to get a dedicated plastic bin for this purpose, I had to clean out my fabric scrap bin for this. Not a problem, just inconvenient. Remember at the beginning when I said there was more? Well, right next to tomato #3, this morning I discovered tomato #4! I guess I was pretty good at pollinating. No wise cracks! Sorry it's a bit blurry, I couldn't get the camera on my phone to focus just right. I switched out the quilt for this nice doily that I made some years ago. Do you like it? The quilt got a bit wet when I moved the tomatoes off the bin so I took it off the table to dry for a bit. Perhaps I'll switch it back for next week's blog. The quilt probably needs a wash as well. All in all, today's adventure was very tame. Here's one last look at the two most recent tomatoes. Perhaps by next week tomato #1 will ripen and I can relate my experience with a taste test.
The plants are beginning to grow up into the lights, but with all the blossoms near the top, I am loathe to start pruning again just yet. I'll probably save that for a bit still. Happy Tomatoing! Not much to tell today, except TA-DAA! An actual tomato! I had been worried that I wasn't pollinating the tomato plants properly, but I got it right on at least one. One thing that makes tomatoes easier to get to the "I've got a tomato" stage is that they are self-pollinators. This means they have flowers on them with both a stamen and a pistil in the same bloom. This means you could have just one tomato plant and it could still pollinate itself with a slight breeze (or a little gentle help from a human!) I read about a few different ways to do this and decided to just use a cotton swab (or my finger) to transfer pollen around on the blooms. It looks like I did OK. The plants are starting to grow up into the lights a bit, but I am worried about pruning, as most of the blooms are appearing at or near the tops of the plants, unsurprisingly. That will probably be next week's topic. Maybe the tomato will be ripe by then and I can tell you how it tasted! Ciao! Happy "tomatoing"! Not much to report. Some of the plants aren't looking great, but I do have a lot of blooms. I'm attempting to pollinate them. I'll let you know how that goes!
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AuthorJust a person growing stuff in an Aerogarden Archives
October 2021
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