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Fast Food Planters Part III and Earliest Tomaties Part II

I will judge the plastic glasses a success. I planted the last couple out in the garden yesterday. The roots were grown against the sides of the plastic cups, which is pretty normal, but usually in a V shaped pot you would see the roots had grown down to the bottom of the pot and started winding around. Even after letting them grow a little too long in these glasses this wasn't really the case. Of course there was some but not nearly as much as I would have expected. There is a chance these patio tomatoes don't send deep roots. That I don't know. But the only problem they seemed to have was that I didn't water them enough once they got bigger. Sometimes I have a problem with that. Right now I have a few shriveled cabbage seedlings in the basement. Something for me to work on. Anyway, two of the plants have half inch tomatoes. It has been cool here lately but I should have tomatoes to pick in a week or two. Not bad.

The regular soda cup lids tended to get brittle and crack really easily after having the dirt and water in them this long. The McDonald's glasses and tops for orange juice were much sturdier and survives better. Since the bottom is bigger than the top I tried to push the plant down but since the goal was to let them get bigger in these pots that didn't work so well. It is much better to take an X-acto knife and cut through the glass from top to bottom and get the plant out that way. I only get to reuse the glass once, but at least it was one time before it goes to the landfill.

Which brings me to my overwintered tomatoes. I ran into an unexpected problem with them. The first one I transplanted outside was so big I ended up snapping the stem as I was planting it. Oops. 1 out of 3 down the drain. As I mentioned it has been cool around here and there is even a frost warning out in the mountains the next couple of nights so I have only done the one so far. Hopefully the transplanting of the other two goes a little better. Next year I will need to work on strengthening the stems. The big nursery growers can do things like have fans blow on the plants. The air movement simulates windy weather which forces the plants to grow stronger stems. Looks like I need to do something similar - and be a bit more careful with them. It pretty much sucks to get them all the way through winter and then break the stem planting them!

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