I went to
see our oldest daughter. Unbeknownst, I seem to have included her into
one of my experiments. One of my tomatoes grown from seed needed a home. Our
oldest grows a few vegetables in pots wherever she happens to be renting. This
time she has a lovely enclosed back porch that has two big windows flooding the
place with warm sunlight. Her lemon tree is there and I figured it needed a
companion.
That tomato
plant has grown like crazy. I swear the thing has doubled in size in one week and
not just up but out. She thinks she can actually tell a difference each day. It
is gorgeous. I was feeling rather guilty as none of mine look that good or big.
Then reality set in. There is no way I have room for pots that large let alone
eleven of them for just the tomatoes. A closer inspection of the lush plant
revealed that it had only three blossom clusters in the earliest stage of
development. Is all the energy going toward the plant and not fruit? When I gave it to her it was one of the smaller tomato plants. Question - will the larger, healthier plant of our daughter's produce more fruit in its lifetime compared to my own smaller plants? Even if it does, I do not have room for such a large pot let alone eleven such pots. I have a few round pots and I think I will try and use a few on the porch but round does not fit in as small a space as square or oblong. With trying to grow plants in the house to eat and a number of plants started for the outdoor garden space is a big problem. It is why I do not recycle pots such as cottage cheese containers and vegetable cans. With her inspiration I took three tomato plants started from seed in a big pot and set it in front of the side window by the front door. I put them wa....y down in the pot to bury more of the stem so as to grow more roots and give the plant more support. The tomato plants from seed get tall and bend over especially when loaded with fruit. To only allow it to grow more roots but give them more support. The plants are suppose to get only 12 inches tall but mine from seed are more like 20 inches or they were last year. Right now we are at 15 inches.
The plant on the left is smaller I allowed the blossoms to develop earlier than the plant on the right. At this stage the plant on the left has more tomatoes. Will the one on the left end up producing more tomatoes or the larger plant on the right? I definitely won't have a problem with the plant on the left breaking because it is too tall. Right now it has over 40 blossoms or tomatoes on it. Some on the window side are turning red. Not bad when you think I started this plant the beginning of January. Definitely faster than tomato plants grown and set outdoors. The cloned tomatoes having a few more blossom clusters per plant than the tomatoes started from seed.
Part of this
experiment is how many tomato plants it will take to keep us supplied with
tomatoes. Not sure it can be accomplished as how can one get enough of summertime fresh flavored tomatoes?