My daughters are gardeners too!

I still have much to write about our visit to Baker Creek, but for the last two evenings my time was occupied with spring planting. The best part about it was that my daughters helped.

Tonight my 14 year old helped plant the third and final wave of the early tomatoes. We planted "Siletz" and "World's Earliest". It was a big help having someone help me remove the plants from the recycled CD spindle containers that they were planted in.

We put crushed egg shells in the planting holes to give the tomatoes added calcium.

My 11 year old daughter is great with a rake. Last night she worked up the soil in several of the existing raised beds.

I have different sized beds but I think my daughters like the 4'x4' beds the best. Just like Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening says, it is easy to reach any part of the bed from all sides. Here my daughters are planting green beans in one 4 foot by 4 foot bed:

Another great thing about raised beds is that you can sit or kneel in the grass and reach in to work the bed. Below my daughter is planting red onions next to the first early tomato batch. Onions are great companion plants for tomatoes.

Gardening with my daughters is great fun. I love when they want to help, but I never make them. When I was a kid, hoeing the garden was part of my chores and I hated it. It took me many years after that to actually like gardening. That is probably also why I don't like hoes (sorry Carol).

I want my daughters to enjoy gardening, and I think they do. They have grown up playing in the garden and helping as much or as little as they want. Now that they are getting older, when they do help, it helps a lot! Why this is great is not because more work gets done. This is great because it gives us some wonderful quality time to talk and be together in nature. I'll gladly take as much of that as possible, even if nothing we planted together grows at all.

Gardening with your children is a priceless gift indeed.

Green Thumb Sunday Tomatoes and Going to Bakersville!

The early tomatoes that were planted outside this week are doing great! Here is my first baby picture:

See it? Its right in the center of the picture, small but oh so cute. Grow quickly little fella!

Around here folks always say that if you don't like the weather just wait a day or two because it changes drastically. It works the same way in reverse too. Thursday and Friday were perfect Spring tomato weather days with highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's. Last night however it got down to 36 degrees and tonight is supposed to be even lower! Yesterday I had to spring into action and construct the temporary lean-to greenhouse. Last night, this it what my early tomatoes looked like:

Here is what they looked like inside:

It was enough to get them through last night. Hopefully tonight and the rest of the cold front will be okay too. If I would have left them out in the open, I probably wouldn't have them today for Green Thumb Sunday!

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Next Sunday I will get to be with the man who possibly has the greatest green thumb of all - Jere Gettle of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

What an amazing business he and his wife Emilee have established by collecting and growing 1200 unique heirloom seed varieties. The reason I may get to meet him next Sunday is because I'm headed to Bakersville! Next Sunday and Monday, May 4th and 5th is Baker Creek's Annual Spring Planting and Heritage Festival.

Yes, Baker Creek is in Missouri and I live in Kentucky. They are 9 hours away but I can't think of a better gardening pilgrimage. Last year they had over 5000 people attend and many vendors. It will be neat to see their set up, the town they have built and the period costumes and demonstrations. The speakers at the festival should be spectacular as well. If you live anywhere near Mansfield Missouri or are willing to drive long distances like me, you should really check out this event. I would love to hear from anyone who has attended in the past and find out if anyone I know is going this year. It would be fun to meet up with a fellow garden blogger or someone who reads this blog.

I am pretty excited about going. My family and I are making a whole vacation out of it. See you in Bakersville!

Big Grow Light Stand Annex

Much has been going on in the garden lately. I have planted broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, chard, peas, potatoes and my first installment of extra-early tomatoes outside. Inside has been even busier. I now have peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and over 100 tomato seedlings under the lights. The problem is that I still have 10 giant extra-early tomato plants also under the lights. Things were getting pretty crowded!

I couldn't fit everything in and I couldn't get the lower lights to go any higher. The plants were growing into and over the lights.

The only way to fix this without abandoning my extra-early tomato plan was to build a light stand annex. I rounded up another old table, some more hooks chains and shop lights and presto - a lovely annex on the other side of the room!

They are already growing up to touch the lights, but I can keep moving the lights up higher now.

Moving these plants around has reminded me that I never shared with you my creative container choices. Anything goes when I get into the larger pot size.

I won't be able to use these double pots again since I had to cut out the bottom. I have already planted some of these out in the garden and I had to completely cut away the pot to get the plant out. The sand pail is a better idea. Just remember, if you use something that wasn't originally intended to be a planter, you need to drill holes in the bottom for drainage. This sand bucket won't hold water anymore!

I have already transplanted five tomato plants in the prepared outside bed. Soon I will have pictures of them. They were Early Girl, New Girl, Orange Blossom, and two 4th of July plants. I did manage to put black plastic down over the bed to heat up the soil but I have not yet built my makeshift lean-to greenhouse to go over them. I haven't had to yet because it has been unseasonably warm this week in the mid 80's! Next week's weather will not be so tomato friendly though. It is supposed to only get to about 50 degrees with overnight lows in the 30s - yikes! That is why it is crazy to plant tomatoes outside here in April. I hope I can get my plastic up soon and it works!

In the meantime I will be potting up the inside tomatoes to even bigger containers. They are looking very happy in their cozy warm indoor environment.

Too bad I can't grow them to fruit stage inside. Sooner or later they have to brave the elements outside. I am still dreaming of ripe tomatoes here in northern zone 5 by June 1st! Wish me luck!

How to grow healthy seedlings under lights

There were several questions asked on my last early tomato post so I thought I should expound on what has worked well for me. I have grown most of my vegetables and annuals from seed under lights for years. I have made many mistakes along the way and have developed a system that works well for me. There are a few simple tips that I have learned that might be helpful to you.

The five most often overlooked tips for growing successful seedlings:

1. Use a lot of light!

If you think your seedlings aren't getting enough light, you're right. And if you think they have enough light, they could still use more. With florescent light fixtures I am trying to mimic the bright and powerful sun, so the more the merrier. I like to have two fixtures per flat (four 40 watt bulbs). I don't use special light spectrum grow bulbs. They are an unnecessary expense. Although it is important to use new bulbs each year because the light bulbs lose some of their brightness as they age. I keep the lights on between 16 and 18 hours per day.

2. Keep the plants close to the lights!

I make sure the light fixtures are only an inch or so above the top of the plants. Remember, we are trying to give them the power of the sun, not the moon. Don't think in terms of how much light we need. I would rather err on the side of the plants touching the bulbs than too far away from them. Being too far from the bulbs causes tall spindly plants.

3. Use good growing medium!

I use the soil-less seed starting mix in the beginning and transplant up to a mixture of potting soil and peat moss. Do not use straight potting soil because it doesn't hold water well enough. You need the peat to keep the roots constantly watered.

4. Give them plenty to drink with bottom watering!

All of my containers have holes in the bottoms to allow water in (or out). Peat pots work the best for this. I put the cell packs, newspaper pots or peat pots in a plant tray that will hold water. Then I fill the tray up about half way and the porous soil medium wicks up the water to feed the roots. I water almost every day. I am convinced that this is where the most mistakes are made with growing seedlings. Constant light can dry out the soil quickly which stresses the plants. If you try to spray your plants from above, they probably don't get enough water. This is why I am struggling with using soil blocks. Since they aren't in a pot you can't bottom water them. I haven't used them for my early tomatoes. I will try again with the main season tomatoes.

Incidentally, making sure my plants are watered frequently enough is why I don't use automatic timers to turn the lights on and off. If I have to do it manually I am more able to monitor the soil moisture.

5. Get your timing right!

Make sure you know when you plan to move the plants outdoors and the growth habit of each kind of plant you are raising. Research the recommended seed-to-transplant time for each vegetable or flower. For instance, tomatoes should only be under lights for 4 to 6 weeks before transplanting and you shouldn't transplant them until all danger of frost has passed. In my area, the average last frost is May 15th. That means that I should wait to plant the seeds of my 27 main season tomato varieties until mid-April. If timed correctly, you do not need to pot-up very often. Of course for my extra-early tomatoes I transplant them two or three times and have them under lights for 8 to 10 weeks but that is unusual. For most of my flower and vegetable seeds, I try to wait as long as possible. Real-estate under grow-lights is at a premium, even for a big bench like mine. Be careful not to take up unnecessary space by planting too early.

Now, If you have never tried starting your own seeds indoors with florescent lights, I hope posts like these don't make it look too complicated. I love managing the plants under lights. For me it is great fun. It is especially rewarding because I know that I can truly raise organic vegetables. I get to control the plants' environment from start to finish. It is also fun to grow seedlings because you get a chance to get your hands dirty when it is still too cold to dig in the outdoor garden. I would recommend any gardener give seed-starting a try.

2008 Extra Early Tomato Update

I often feel like I write too much about my tomato endeavors here, but I have been asked in a comment and in emails about the status of my extra-early tomato plants. If you agree that I write too many tomato posts, I apologize. Its just that there is a bit of satisfaction in trying to beat mother nature and coax something along to an early harvest. For me (and for those asking me to write this), that obsession lies with tomatoes! It is fun to get to eat a nice juicy organic garden fresh tomato a full month earlier than your neighbors. Its even more fun to have enough early tomatoes to share with you neighbors.

So that is what I am shooting for this year. Last year I only grew two early tomato plants. This year I will have a lot more - at least 12. As of now, I have about 30 plants growing under lights. Last year, I raised only Early Girl tomatoes as my early variety. This year I am trying six different varieties. Last year my goal was to have ripe tomatoes by June 24th (my birthday), and got the first ripe tomato on June 15th! This year I am hoping for May 31st!

So how am I doing? Is that goal possible? I'm really not sure. I do feel like I'm further behind than I should be. I started the first seeds on Valentine's Day and I stuck to my holiday theme by transplanting tomato seedlings yesterday on Easter.

The problem is that I wasn't able to start all the early varieties at the same time. I only started Early Girl and New Girl on February 14th. They were transplanted to peat pots on February 28th. I started Orange Blossom and 4th of July on February 17th, but didn't get them transplanted to peat pots until March 10th! The last of my early varieties are Sub Arctic and Siletz. Those seeds didn't come in until late, so they were seeded on February 28th and transplanted to peat pots yesterday, March 23rd. Here is an example of the size difference between the plants transplanted on February 28th and the ones transplanted yesterday.

Big difference. Originally I wanted to grow several different varieties to find out which one is the best early tomato. As you can see, scientifically I have failed all of the varieties except Early Girl and New Girl. They are the only ones that might still be on pace. For them, yesterday was time to transplant again. For this third step they get put into CD spindle covers that are about 7 inches deep. They need to have holes drilled in them first for drainage.

These are great containers for this purpose because they are big enough in diameter and taller than a conventional 4 inch pot. This is great for tomatoes because each time you transplant a tomato plant, you want to plant it deeper than what it was in the pot it came from. You can bury the entire stem up to the first true leaves because roots grow from the buried stem which makes the plant stronger. Here is a before-after comparison of a plant in the peat pot and then in the CD pot.

So am I far enough along to be fortunate enough to harvest before June 1st? That is two full weeks earlier than last year. Judging solely by my indoor transplanting schedule, I don't think I'm two weeks ahead of last year. Where I hope to make up ground is in the outdoor preparation.

I have two raised beds from last year that I will be planting these early tomatoes in. I have put black plastic on the soil to begin warming it. I also plan to erect a frame down the middle of the beds to be able to drape 6 mil clear plastic over. The frame that I'm talking about will look just like the wood of my pea trellis. Later, I will use the wood frame to support the plants like my tomato towers from last year.

But now I'm getting ahead of myself. Hopefully the plants will be put out by the middle of April. Our average last frost date is May 15th, so even with extra protection I will have to watch the weather.

Is this all too much trouble just to reap ripe tomatoes a month or so early? Not if you are a tomato fanatic like me!

I'll let you know more as it develops.

Valentine's Day reminds me of.... Tomatoes!

What's red that you think of on Valentines Day? - Hearts? Roses? Not Me! Valentine's Day makes me think of Tomatoes!

Early Tomatoes to be exact.

Around here, folks use holidays as reminders of when to do things in the yard and garden. They say to set out peas and potatoes on St. Patrick's Day, set out tomatoes and peppers on Mother's Day, open your pool on Memorial Day and close that pool on Labor Day. Call me strange, but I add "start tomato seeds on Valentine's Day" to that list.

Last year, I started extra-early tomatoes with the goal of getting ripe ones by my birthday on June 24th. I actually picked the first ripe red tomato on June 15th!

This year I'm putting more work into it and setting the goal at May 31st. If I'm really lucky, I could have a ripe tomato by Memorial Day!

How do I plan to achieve this here in Northern Zone 5 where most ripe tomatoes are harvested in Late July and early August? Much like I did last year by planting early under grow lights and potting up multiple times until I transplant the monster-huge tomato plants outdoors in April. What I will add to the strategy this year involves the outdoor planting site. I will put down black plastic to warm the soil, and I will wrap the new plants with plastic cages and possibly construct a temporary hoop house over the early plants.
I will let you know all the details in these pages as we go along.

Last year, my extra-early tomato plats were the Early Girl variety. They did well but this year I will be planting 4 other extra early varieties to give Early Girl a run for the money!

The GardenDesk newcomers are: Hybrids New Girl and Orange Blossom from Johnny's Selected Seeds and Heirlooms Siletz and Sub-Artic "World's Earliest" from Baker Creek. Both of these companies are amongst my favorites. More details to come!

Getting back to Valentine's Day - before I get any angry email accusing me of not being a romantic, I want to state that I DID give my wife and daughters the real red of Valentine's Day - Roses.

Now they will lovingly let me start tomatoes tonight! Yum!

Birthday Tomato Update for Green Thumb Sunday!

Well today is June 24th - my birthday. I'm not usually focused on my own birthday, but this year my #1 gardening goal was to have ripe tomatoes by now. June tomatoes are unusual for me here in the Cincinnati area. Last year it was August before I got ripe ones.

Not this year!

A wonderful birthday present. Actually the tomato pictured is the 6th Early Girl tomato this year (and actually is much smaller than the others). The first one was on June 15th. Next year, my family wants to shoot for a May ripe tomato!

I said "my family" instead of just me because it really has become a fun family thing working on reaching the goal. My daughters even wanted to protect our early plants from hungry or thirsty animals so much that they encouraged me to fence the plants in.

Usually animals don't bother tomatoes, but in the midst of our drought, animals might go after ripe tomatoes for the water content.

We have been seeing many foxes and raccoons lately so this fence will keep them out.

Soory, only humans are permitted to enjoy these garden fresh, vine ripened organic birthday tomatoes!

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First Ripe Tomato on June 15th!

Hooray! We picked our first ripe tomato this morning, June 15th! It was my goal to be able to harvest the first ripe tomato by my birthday on June 24th, so It looks like we made it!

My daughter has been watching it all week.

She wanted to pick it on Wednesday, and we probably could have, but I wanted it to turn all the way red on the vine. When we picked it this morning, she was happy to hold it.

As for my goal, I still want to eat garden fresh BLTs on my birthday. I'm pretty sure we will be able to because many other tomatoes are almost ripe.

I wanted to write more about my tomatoes and many other things going on in the garden, but I haven't had much time lately. My Dad is in the hospital. He has been battling cancer for some time now, and earlier this week he had a stroke. I am leaving to go back to the hospital now, but first I wanted to share with you my wonderful early tomato. I feel like a proud parent!

Isn't it beautiful? Maybe I can eat it for Father's Day!

Store Bought Tomato Cages not Good Enough

On my last post about my extra early tomatoes, Italman asked if I was happy with the tomato cages in the photo. They were just the average four ring "cages" that you can buy at most garden centers, hardware stores and even grocery stores.

Well Italman, since the cage on the left just fell over, the answer is NO!

At least my curtain rod stake (gardeners will use anything) kept the cage from falling all the way to the ground.

I was able to repair the problem by securing some other collapsible tomato cages to the outside of the flimsy cages.

Now that these early girl tomato plants are upright again, they are over four feet tall!

I have about 40 more tomato plants that are still small. They will all need some kind of support as well. The store bought cages WILL work for some varieties if they are bush type or determinate. The indeterminate tomatoes need something better. My favorite methods are the "Florida Stake and Weave", "Topless Tables" and my own special "tomato trellis". I will write about all of these more as the season goes on. I wrote a post last year about my tomato trellis and topless tables if you want to know more about them.

As for now, I'm just glad that my extra-early tomatoes are still growing. My goal is still to have ripe ones by my birthday on June 24th. That date is coming up soon. Here is what the tomatoes look like right now:

Do you think they will make it in time?

If so, maybe I could claim to have a green thumb after all!

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Come on Early Tomatoes, Ripen Up!

Part of Wordless Wednesday

These are my extra early Early Girl Tomatoes that I'm trying to get a month or two early!

For the rest of the story, Click Here!

Extra Early Tomato Update!

As you may already know, I have a goal to harvest ripe tomatoes from my Early Girl tomato plants by June 24th. I haven't done all that I planned to do in order to help that occur, but the tomatoes are doing pretty well.

There are a dozen or so tomatoes coming on, and the bigger ones are a bit larger than a golf ball. I wrote extensivly about this in some previous posts. If you want to get caught up you can read them HERE and HERE.

Ripe tomatoes in June may not sound very impressive to you southern gardeners, but it is here in northern Kentucky. To put it in the proper perspective, I picked my first ripe tomato last year on August 5th.

I didn't put down the black plastic that I planned to, so I hope these cool nights are not slowing down the tomato growth too much.

Keep your fingers crossed for me! I'll let you know how they did in about six weeks!

Not Enough Gardening Going On; Deck Building Update

It has been a bit frustrating that I haven't gotten to plant much in the vegetable garden. Every minute of spare time lately has gone to building the deck. Many of you have been encouraging to me by your nice comments and questions concerning the deck's progress. Well, here's a photo update:

It is all framed in now, and I'm beginning to put on the actual decking! I'm really about twice as far as that last picture because I worked on it again tonight until after dark. My camping lantern puts out pretty much light!

I do get frustrated with how much time it takes, but my wonderful wife keeps reminding me that I'm building it all by myself. She also reminds me of what it used to look like. Here is the first photo we took back in March when I had just begun removing the old deck boards, followed by a repeat current photo (for comparison):

The old deck was rotting and wasn't level because it had no support beams under it. The new deck will be level and much larger!

I can't wait to sit out on it with a nice glass of lemonade and a garden-fresh bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich! As for the tomato, my extra early Early Girls are planted outside now!

The first official thing that I'm doing with the new deck (even before it is finished) is placing my other 20 tomato varieties out on it to harden off. I don't think I'll be able to wait for the deck commpletion to plant them, but I'm sure the deck will be finished before I get to eat them!

Early Girl Extra Early Tomato Update

Early Girl was the first tomato variety listed on my last post. With this variety, I am trying to have ripe tomatoes by my birthday on June 24th. Normally I don't get ripe tomatoes until early August. I wrote an extensive post about this about 3 weeks ago.

To update their progress, the extra early tomatoes are still inside, but they have outgrown the light table.

I was hoping to have them outside by now, but the weather hasn't cooperated and I want to construct a mini greenhouse covering to put over and around the plants once they are outside. I don't want to put them out unprotected too early.

If you didn't see the previous post, here is the photo montage I displayed of their life so far:

Then I put the plants back under the lights like they were in picture 8. It wasn't too long before they grew to this:

They had to be moved down to fit under the lights.

From there, they weren't getting enough direct light so I moved them to the floor and moved a light down to them.

They have now begun blooming, which I had hoped wouldn't happen until I got them outside.

Today is already April 27th. The normal safe from frost date to plant tomatoes where I live is May 15th and most people will plant them on Mother's Day weekend on the 12th or 13th. With any luck, I will get mine outside in the next few days. I hope that's soon enough to still get ripe tomatoes in June. Cross your fingers for me!

Ripe Tomatoes in June!

On the first day of Spring, Anthony at Compost Bin posted an excellent article about making "New Year's Resolutions" for your garden on that day instead of New Years Day. He challenged us garden bloggers to write a post about our 2007 gardening goals. He revealed one of his 2007 goals of making garden fresh pickles for the first time ever. Well Anthony, if 2007 is the year of the pickle for you, it is the year of the early tomato for me! Sometime in the month of June, I what to see this in my garden:

This may not seem like a big deal to you southern gardeners, but I am in northern Kentucky - just 20 miles from Ohio. Around here we don't get to eat garden fresh tomatoes until the middle of August.

On my earlier 2007 to do list post, I stated that I was hoping for ripe tomatoes by July 1st. I am now revising that to Before July 1st. Actually I'm hoping for June 24th because that is my birthday and I can't think of a better birthday present than a BLT sandwich made with an organic garden fresh tomato!

Enough with dates and dreams already! How am I going to accomplish harvesting extra early ripe tomatoes? It isn't easy. It is actually pretty labor intensive. I started with the tomato variety Early Girl which has a faster maturation than most. Jet Star or July 4th would also be good choices for extra early tomatoes. I sowed the seeds in a cell pack on Valentine's Day, two or three seeds per spot and put them under a shop light in the laundry room where it the dryer and the furnace make the room warm even in winter. After the seeds germinated, I thinned each pack to the strongest looking seedling. As soon as they had true leaves, I transplanted them to individual peat pots and put them under my main grow lights. After a couple of weeks, I transplanted the best four plants again to an even larger container. Then, just yesterday I planted the best two to yet an even larger container.

Each time I transplant them, I place them deeper in the new pot because new roots grow from the buried stem. Yesterday, I even trimmed off the lower leaves to be able to bury the plants even deeper. This intensive transplanting is designed to keep the plants growing as if they were outside. Plants will fill up the pots they are in and stop growing. That doesn't damage the plant for main season growing, but this operation is for extra-early tomatoes.

During the whole process, I try to keep as much light on the plants as possible. After transplanting up from the peat pots, it takes two shop lights just for these four early tomato plants. It becomes a bit of a challenge finding bigger containers each time. My intermediate containers were the plastic covers from a spindle of 100 CDs. The neat thing about that is that you could actually see all of the roots as they reached the outside of the container. One of my current pots is an old child's sand bucket. When I use items like these, I drill holes in the bottom of the container for drainage and for bottom watering. I never spray water on any of my seedlings. I always bottom water by pouring water in the trays and letting the roots or peat pots soak up the water. The steps that I've just described are all of them that I've done so far. There is more to do to prepare the outside locations for the tomato plants, but first I'll show you a montage of the steps I've just outlined:

Hopefully, this will be the last indoor transplant. It took nearly an entire bag of soil-less mix per plant. I will let them grow some more in their new containers for about tow weeks and then I will have to pay close attention to the weather. If we get some warm days, I will move the tomato plants outside for increasing amounts each day to harden them off and get the plants used to the real sun and wind. After a few days of hardening them off, I will plant these two tomato pioneers out in their permanent location under makeshift individual greenhouses. I am building wood frames with thick clear plastic wrapped around them. One will be used at night, and a different one with venting capabilities will be used for the days. This is when I will have to rely on my wife to tend their needs during the day based on the weather conditions. In addition to the "greenhouses", If I'm able to work up the bed the tomatoes will be growing in ahead of time, I will place black plastic over the area to warm the soil.

I will post again about how they are doing when we reach the outdoor stage. If the weather cooperates, it is entirely possible that I can beat my goal by a number of weeks, but when does the weather ever cooperate in Spring? This whole scheme for extra-early tomatoes is not my original creation. I got it from a book that I bought back in 1988, called The New Victory Garden by Bob Thompson.

Bob Thompson is much better than me at describing the process of growing early tomato. If you are interested in this book, you may be able to find it at your library, or it is available from Amazon starting at only $2.00.

Well Anthony, there you have my main 2007 garden goal. I will keep you and anyone interested posted on my progress so we can all see if I reach my goal. Hopefully we can celebrate together with June BLTs for me and fresh pickles for you!

If anyone else wants to post their goals for 2007, do so and let Anthony at Compost Bin know about it. I would be interested as well, but Anthony is the one who challenged us to do so.
You can email him at: Compostman@gmail.com

And/Or drop me a line at: Marc@GardenDesk.com

I hope you all reach your 2007 garden goals!