Thursday, April 3, 2008

Charlie Brown Tomatoes


Our tomato plants came in today! I'm so excited.

I always feel a little like Charlie Brown kicking the football at this time of year. DH and I get our hopes up for a great crop of tasty tomatoes, and then, just like last year, Lucy moves the football, i.e., something goes wrong and we are disappointed again.

The past couple of years were the worst. We tried growing tomatoes in those upside-down planters. As soon as we planted our beautiful tomato plants in those planters, they began looking sick. I don't know if we accidentally raised the plants out of the direct sun, or we had a fungus among us, or what. Now, a tomato expert in our area says that his brother grows them in upside-down buckets, and they do very well, so I don't know what our problem was with that.

DH even built a mesh-enclosed structure to keep the birds out. I still donate a tomato to the birds every now and then, but they don't get all of them.

In previous years, we have grown some tomatoes that we figure cost approximately $75 per tomato--no small feat. I'm not sure if they were actually worth $75 apiece, but they were yummy.

This year, we're going back to the Earth Boxes . . . . . we have many, many Earth Boxes. I have a fungicide recommended by the tomato expert, and The Roomie accidentally mentioned to me that she's a Master Gardener, so I have plans for her, too.

She'll have her hands full; our problems growing tomatoes are legend. Wish us good luck . . . and please don't touch that football.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I could probably advise you on an additional 50 ways to kill tomatoes. Seriously, anyone who can grow roses like yours doesn't need advice from me. I'm still going to try the upside down tomatoes this year, and you can be prepared to say, "Told you so!"

TS said...

Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't post any photos of the roses with blackspot, spider mites, and powdery mildew. I hang in there for the few that are perfect!