2015 Organic Heirloom Tomato Journal
 

For those who happened to miss my introduction, feel free to give it a read for the quick personal details. I don't want to clutter a journal dedicated to plants with blah, blah about myself. So, I'll just provide a link to that thread and we can joke around and get to know each other over there!

[url]http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=480531#post480531[/url]

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get down to the GOOD stuff - THE GARDEN!!!! :dance:

I primarily grow in 6 gallon cat litter buckets, that are merely the end result of taking in the neighborhood strays at a rate quick enough for them to have established a ruling hierarchy of which one is next by roosting on the porch and claiming it as their own. REGARDLESS, there was an excess of these 6 gallon, square, plastic, buckets that any environmentally conscious person would have sought to put to good use in some manner.

I also have 2 raised beds that are 20' long x 15" wide x 11" deep. Each bed holds roughly 120 gallons of soil and I planted 8 plants per bed. 2' off the ends and then 2.5' on center, if I remember correctly. This was roughly 20 gallons of soil per plant and left room for companion planting / cropping in between the tomatoes if I so desired (and I did so desire).

I had read many agriculture extensions published studies / results on various growing methods and wanted to, for the most part, replicate large scale methodology on a small, urban/backyard scale. I think this way merely because with proper planning and execution of a plan comes success. It only makes sense to utilize the resources and information provided by legitimate scientific study to ensure a desired outcome.

With that in mind, the 20 ft length on the soil beds was mostly determined by how long a staking run is in a field before a row break is placed.

In order to support my plants, I have placed 7' t-post (only because I couldn't get 8' or 10' locally) at the end of each raised bed and I have/will string 14 gauge wire (again, only because I couldn't find 12 gauge locally) roughly every 18" along the t-post.

I don't plan to "sucker" my plants for any reason and any growth that grows outside the flexible parameters to fit inside the wire, I suppose I will just support with string and/or clips.

Hopefully...this game plan will carry me through the season and I'll achieve my end goal and have beautiful, tasty, organic heirloom tomatoes!!!

I'll eventually post pictures...

And before I forget, I just want to say - it's great to be a part of Tomatoville! I'm really excited to have stumbled upon this place and I can't wait to learn from all of you along this journey! Feel free to chime in!

Building the Beds
 

To get everyone caught up to date with my garden and how things have progressed for me this season, I figured a dated progress picturama was the best way to go about it.

[B]4/21/2015[/B]

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1779[/IMG]

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[B]
5/17/2015[/B]

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The dimensions of the beds are listed in my last post. I custom mix my own base soil and then mix all my organic amendments into the soil. From that point forward, my garden is pretty hands off and I literally do nothing but water things the rest of the season.

The same is true of my 6 gallons containers, except I generally have to top feed a couple of times during the heart of the season. This is simply the same amendment mix that is already in the soil, just gently scratched into the surface with a bit of compost placed over it to help hold moisture which helps the worms and beneficial bacteria take to composting the raw materials faster...

Hi UrbanFarmer, welcome to Tomatoville. Your layout looks nice, I also use the kitty litter containers to plant but mainly for pepper, hoping to see your progress throughout the season.
Santa

Hello, chicha01! Thanks for the warm welcome and for tuning into the thread. Glad to have you along for the journey. The litter buckets are quite perfect for gardening...especially tomatoes where there is benefit to planting deep.

[B][U]A bit more detail about the beds:

[/U][/B](this is a smaller 10' bed that is currently home to 5 second year Carolina Reaper plants)

The side walls are lined with a 6mm black construction plastic. From the ground up, is a heavy landscape fabric, a thin layer of straw (for worms to bed into), and then the soil fills the bed.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1787[/IMG]

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1788[/IMG]

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1789[/IMG]


And, so you can get a better idea of what I'm planting into.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1790[/IMG]

Back to the plants
 

Last year, we grew Super Sweet 100 from seed and then bought a bunch of Homestead from Lowes thinking we'd be fine. The blight we brought home from those plants took out everything we had and ruined our season...

While we did have a good amount of cherry tomatoes but our main use tomato was a massive failure in the grand scheme of things. We had SOME tomatoes...but certainly nothing like we had hoped from the 9 I think we had.

Taking what we had learned from last year and knowing exactly where our faults were, we set out to get SERIOUS about things this year.

Everything was started from seed, indoors, under 4ft, T-8 bulbs. Nothing high powered, but enough light to get the seeds above the ground and slowly edging towards something.

We used composted soil from the prior failed year but didn't want to risk any viral infection to vulnerable seed / seedlings so we cooked all soil so that it reached 180 degrees for 15 minutes leaving it sterile. The soil was inoculated with BioVam before the seeds were planted which important to note.

Now, for the information that everyone is curious to know:

We are growing 14 different varieties this year; some cherry, some slicing/daily use, and some paste types.

Cherokee Purple
Blue Beauty
Woodle Orange
Pritchard Scarlet Topper
Break-O-Day

Chocolate Cherry
Riesentraube
Yellow Gooseberry
Red Velvet
Purple Bumblebee
Sungold Select II

Amish Paste
Rosso Sicilian
Ukrainian Purple

Some of these are in buckets and some of these are in beds, but all of them are around and will be getting a bit of spotlight through out the season, hopefully!!!

It's a big jump up from what was attempted the previous year, but I am confident in the direction taken and so far things have been looking good!!

I got off to a good start out the gate with documenting this thread...but...hit a speed bump.

Our local farmers market is on Wednesday mornings - so a lot of time and prep work goes into making sure we have the items we want to take. We focus primarily on heirloom tomatoes and their processed derivatives but also grow other things including super hot peppers, carrots, herbs, lettuces, squash, etc.

We are truly urban farmers and our supply of course is always very limited as a result, but our end product is always of a superior quality and has a depth / complexity of flavor which is much more pronounced as a result of our organic soil.

This is our FIRST year participating in a market and it has been a huge learning experience. Every week it seems as if there is something new to adjust to or make better which is actually a welcome challenge. Having "competition" in a sense has driven us to grow even better produce than before!!!

On a side note, I've been booked for a organic soil building lecture for one of the local master gardeners societies. I'm looking forward to sharing some knowledge with others and helping more people reconnect with nature through urban farming and backyard organics.

I'll do my very best to get this thread current in the next couple of days. We need some TOMATO pictures in here!!!

[B]5/17/2105[/B]

In this tray was 2 Cherokee Purple, 2 Rosso Sicilian and 4 Blue Beauty. The beds being 20' long, I think the plants were put 1.5' in from the ends and then every 2.5' on center, if I remember correctly. We left this much space to allow room for companion planting of other favorable crops.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1785[/IMG]

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[B]5/30/15

[/B]Things have taken well. The second bed was only partially filled at this point, I think. It holds 2 each of Chocolate Cherry, Riesentraube, Purple Bumblebee, and Red Velvet.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1791[/IMG]

[B]6/2/2015

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1792[/IMG]

6/6/2015[/B]

A view down Bed 1 - roots starting to take - bacteria inoculating roots - soil food web forming - nutrient uptake becoming apparent ; plants stalks starting to beef up a bit and secondary lateral growth (errr..."suckers") starting to show some growth.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1793[/IMG]

[B]6/9/2015

[/B]Plants had outgrown their make shift stakes (weed reeds from the yard) and needed support. It was time to get serious and get the t-posts set in place. I could only find 7ft locally and I really wanted at the very least 8ft. I truly felt 10ft would have been ideal - ALWAYS better to have more than you need than not enough, right???

I used 14 gauge galvanized electric fence wire for support. I wanted 12 gauge, but again, couldn't find exactly what I was seeking so made do.

The setup in general was MUCH cheaper than trying to cage everything and we all know cages are useless past a certain point with indeterminate vines.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1794[/IMG]


That gets me closer to current. But I will say...things are growing exponentially. It's shaping up to be a good season.

During the last 2 weeks we have been getting extreme heat. Daily temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. I wasn't quite on top of the heat wave and got slack on watering. I noticed this because the bottoms of a couple of earliest my Cherokee Purples had begun to sink in and harden.

My first thought was - OH NO!!! BLOSSOM END ROT! IMPOSSIBLE!!! - I know my beds have plenty of calcium. So I studied a bit and noticed the differences. This was not mushy/softened fruit. It was not perfectly circular along the bottom of the fruit, etc.

So, I increased my watering amount and frequency to twice a day and things have been flourishing ever since and there has been zero indication of such on any other fruits. Makes me a happy urban farmer when my plants are happy!!!

That is a very nice build!
So how are you handling watering? By hand?

I have a water hose on a hand reel cart. I don't move the cart - but it does make it easy to pull the hose out and gather it back neatly and quickly.

I use a cheap $3 watering wand on the "shower" setting using it at about 1/3 pressure; never full as that "blasts" the soil around and causes unnecessary splash back.

Slow and steady. It takes me about 1-1:30 hour(s), 2x a day to water the garden when having high temperatures.

The soil was designed to drain well but also hold a lot of water. It's some what necessary with the type of weather we get. High heat with no rain, then monsoon for a day or two, then high heat with high humidity and no rain. Repeat.

If the soil doesn't drain well, the heavy rains will flood everything out. If it doesn't retain water then the high heat and 3 week droughts will certainly dry everything up.

Thank you for the kind words! It's encouraging!!:D

I made a top dress for my tomato beds this year. The focus was on having readily available nutrition but also something that will contribute to over all soil health in the long term. After that first initial scare of blossom end rot (that was actually under watering) I wanted to make 100% sure it was not even something to concern myself with.

Idea was to put the focus on P, K, Ca, S, and Si. Wanted to combat several common tomato issues - blossom end rot, healthy green plants with low yield, tops wilting and stems folding under high heat, and water retention.

Made a mix of: aragonite, gypsum, calcium bentonite, bone meal, soft rock phosphate, bat guano, sulfate of potash, earthworm castings.

So far so good. I applied my first top dressing of this mix at 1/4c per plant and scratched things into the surface on 6/18 - right before we got a long, slow, heavy rain. It was perfect timing as far as getting the application worked into the soil.

I fully expect the plants to respond favorably and start going into high gear with the fruit production. I did notice the leaves cringe a bit from the new introduction; The tips bowed sharply downward and began to curl/roll up a bit and took a slightly leathery appearance. I would assume this is from the high phosphorous. This general reaction faded after about 24 hours and the plants settled into the changes.

But, I did get a bit ahead of myself here on the order of things. It's hard to document a journal when you are running weeks behind. I have notes all over the places to organize to get the dates right on when I did different things.

Stuff like this is important to me as I'll remember the things I could have done slightly better for next year and rather than constantly being reactive to the plants needs, I can be a bit more proactive next season and further reduce various points of stress on the plants, which in my opinion can become vectors for disease to take hold if let unaddressed, depending on the type of factors present.

Next year I am planning to farm a 1/4 acre, so thoroughly documenting this years journey has become a bit more important to me.

[B]6/15/2015

[/B]This was a couple days into 100 degree temperatures. It was about this time I noticed the first fruits developing what I thought was blossom end rot but was in fact under hydration.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1795[/IMG]


A couple more days of extreme temperatures (over 100 degrees) and the plants were starting to show some wear. Out of all the varieties in the garden, the Cherokee Purple and Red Velvet seemed to be most sensitive to these environmental conditions.

I had already increased my watering amount and frequency to 2x a day a couple days prior so this new leaf tissue issue was a bit curious. My initial assumption sun scald as I have, but a close friend suggested it was perhaps a lack of phosphorous.

I wasn't entirely sure so I took away the [I][U][COLOR=Red]damaged leaves[/COLOR][/U][/I] and got some pictures, hoping the experts on here can tell me 100% what caused this! [I][U][COLOR=Red]Any suggestions???[/COLOR][/U][/I]

[B]6/17/2015

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[/B]It was because of the above issues that I went ahead and decided to begin my top feed regimen a bit early. I hadn't anticipated doing so until the first mature fruits had been harvested, but if it was the result of a phosphorous deficiency, I wanted to act sooner than later!

This actually brings me to post #10 where I discussed the top feeding application. 2 cups per bed (1/4 cup per plant) gently scratched into the surface

[B]6/18/2015

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[/B]Which again, really just brings me back to the details in post #10.

I tried to use the panorama feature on my phone to capture the full garden at a different angle to give a better perception of it's size but the quality is low.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1800[/IMG]

The garden looks great.

Thank you, topazgirl170. Kind of you to say!

Things have been busy. Everything is growing and for the most part looking okay, but [COLOR=Red][U]there are some critical points I'd really like to focus on in this post; Things I've noticed that could be improved upon in future attempts[/U][/COLOR]. But before I get into [U][COLOR=Red]the problems[/COLOR][/U], let's take a look at the good.

[B]6/22/2015

[/B]In the first bed planted we have 4 Blue Beauty, 2 Rosso Sicilian, and 2 Cherokee Purple.

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The second bed was planted with 2 each of Red Velvet, Purple Bumblebee, Riesentraube, Chocolate Cherry.

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In addition to the beds, there are a number of buckets at this location and another.

In the first row are 6 Pritchard's Scarlet Topper, and 4 Woodle Orange. The second row holds a Yellow Gooseberry, a couple more Red Velvet, but is mostly Sungold Select II.

[IMG]http://tomatoville.com/picture.php?albumid=339&pictureid=1812[/IMG]


[B]6/25/2015

[/B]Things had been growing at a rapid pace. I had to put up the 4th line of wire on the t-posts. Well, actually, I had originally spaced everything to be 3 holes up the post a part, or roughly about 2'. I decided that was too far apart, so moved everything so it was a wire every other hole, or roughly about 15" apart, which worked MUCH better at keeping all the secondary growth inside the supports. You can see the top of the one Chocolate Cherry on the far right has reached a true 6' mark. This puts me into a situation where I have to extend the supports much sooner than I had expected. I THINK, I'll buy more t-posts and cut them down to the desired extension lengths and just bolt them to the current pots, but time will tell.
[B]
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[/B]
I hope you are enjoying my garden as much as I do. Feel free to comment with suggestions or ideas where you see room for improvement. Remember, I know dirt but this is only my second season growing tomato vines.

My next post is going to be all about the[COLOR=Red][U] current issues I am facing with this garden[/U][/COLOR] and I could really use the help of this community to come up with concrete answers which will make finding a solution much easier!

[B]Brad Gates - Blue Beauty[/B]

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Thanks for looking! - I'll get to the problems later...things like plants falling over, over watering, fruits cracking, curly top virus, plants getting a lighter shade of green in the buckets, etc...

Lots of work to do...lots of things to record. Not much time to sit at the computer when you're in the garden!

I just picked a Blue Beauty. I haven't tried it yet.

Your wooden raised beds are very nice. My first idea in looking at them next to your buckets is that those buckets could be placed inside a bed lined all around with a pond liner. That would make watering go much faster, just fill the liner with a few inches of water. You can plumb a drain into it to drain off the excess. I do the same thing with a kiddie pool and my dwarf plants in 5-gallon buckets.