So, at midnight last night, I happened to be doing a walkthrough of the living room and saw the red light blinking. Which means that adding plant food and cleaning coincided perfectly with Tomato Thursday. Obviously, I wasn't doing it at midnight! It did take me longer to get to this today than I thought. But that's ok. I also just noticed in the picture that I really need to wipe down the outside of the Aerogarden. That's a task for after lunch and I can't have lunch until I get this blog done! So here's some pictures from today's task. Not pictured: when I picked the seed pod tray up off the base, there was this dark thing in the roots! I thought to myself, "Did some of the roots rot?" Nope, it was just the little black filter thing. It had gotten pulled out along with the tomato plants and roots. I had to really clean that out as the roots had grown into the filter. And did you know the little "fill to here" thingy comes off? I didn't know until today. I took it off, there's this little thing inside, not sure what it is. A float to let the Aerogarden know the water level? I think so. That little spigot for the pump comes off too, but I forgot to take a picture of that. The middle picture is where I added a little water and the plant food after cleaning the inside and parts. And the far right picture? An impromptu fountain erupts when plugging the base back in. I filled it the rest of the way with water before putting the tomatoes back in. Lots of roots now, of course. I trimmed those a bit (not pictured) and trimmed the plants a bit as they were (of course) growing into the lights again. Then back on the base and I tied the plants up to help them stay up. Back on the base and the tinfoil replaced. There are quite a few little tomatoes on there but they are having a hard time ripening, so I feel like I am going to have to break down and make the tinfoil enclosure that I've been going on about for a while now. It's difficult getting to the base now with all the growth, but it's necessary to clean the reservoir on a regular basis to make sure things don't get nasty and your tomato plants don't get sick. That's all for this week, Happy Tomatoing!
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So, as I've said before, we've kind of settled into a comfy tomato relationship, so it's really just maintenance at this point. I still haven't made more tinfoil stuff to put around the tomatoes, I'm kind of avoiding it for some reason. Really I just want to stop and tell you guys what I've been kind of thinking about. What works, what doesn't, and so on. What doesn't work: as tempted a you may be when you first get your Aerogarden with all those seed pods that match up exactly with the number of holes in your Aerogarden, do not use them all. That was my mistake with the tomatoes and I really have way too many tomato plants in this thing, but my kind-hearted fiancé doesn't want me to pull any out. I may try to transplant some outside, but the caterpillars are hell right now. What does work: the tinfoil. That helped 100%. It definitely makes a difference how much light tomatoes get, regardless of what I've read says. Make sure you keep up with watering. Clean out the water reservoir. All the little maintenance things make a difference. Keep trimming, too. I'm getting too many little tomatoes up near the lights because I'm squeamish about pruning. Holy cow, some of the branches are tough to cut with the regular scissors. I didn't do a before and after this time, just an after. I didn't zoom in, but take my word for it, I have a lot of little tomatoes on there. In between blog posts, I got some little tomatoes to ripen. When they get close I like to put them on the kitchen windowsill to finish ripening. It works pretty well. They were eaten pretty quickly. Not in a salad or anything, just a little snack. So, there you have it. Think happy thoughts for me that I'll get off my rear and make the tinfoil to surround the tomatoes so they'll ripen more evenly.
Happy Tomatoing! First off, I'd like to post what I promised last time about "link to come later" or whatever. I have a little "links clearinghouse" that includes not only the promised Podcast link but links to this blog as well as my main blog: Knittingfoolelinks. Ok, there you go. Now, on to Tomato Business ™. Putting in more plant food was today's task. I keep a little shot glass next to the Aerogarden to make things super easy. It has little markings on the side so I know how much I'm pouring. I got the bright idea to put a little water in the shot glass (using the watering can I also keep right there) after pouring the plant food in, swishing it, and pouring that in before topping off the water. That way the shot glass can stay in its place longer before the journey to the kitchen sink has to occur. I know it's really simple, but sometimes things like this just don't occur to me right away. They say Einstein had the same problem. No, no he didn't. I made that part up. At any rate.......I made a tinfoil light reflector to put behind the tomatoes and reflect that all-important light back to the little guys so they would ripen. I took it off, though, to take the main picture. It's just too "reflecty" sometimes. Looking around, I noticed that little guy. Hi Little Guy! Basically the tomatoes and I have settled into a comfortable routine of coming by to check on them daily, snipping off branches that grow into the lights, feeding when necessary, etc. The routine is becoming comfy, like the aforementioned pajamas. The tomatoes are not so exciting anymore. But that's not a bad thing. The tomatoes seem to doing pretty well. We'll see if we get some more tomatoes that were as big as the first ones. Comparing the sizes of the first few tomatoes to what I expected not only from descriptions on the Aerogarden website but also reports from other Aerogarden tomato growers, I think I must have gotten extremely lucky. I was told to prepare for VERY small cherry tomatoes. That's not a problem for me. I like these little guys. A final picture for today. More about the tinfoil later. I've got some other things to do now, and I've taken way too long with this little post. Eventually I'll figure things out so I can streamline the blogging process, then I can get into some more things that I want to do with this garden.
In the meantime, Happy tomatoing! If you listen to my podcast (link to come later) you know I had a thing last week that totally threw me off. That's why there wasn't anything last Thursday and that's why I'm posting this early this week. See you next week. There's not much happening with the tomatoes, anyway.
Happy Tomatoing! |
AuthorJust a person growing stuff in an Aerogarden Archives
October 2021
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