Adarsh Pandit
I grew a garlic!Turns out: if you have a garlic bulb that grows a little green sprout, and you stick it in the ground, it will grow into multiple bulbs! (Each clove grows into ~1 bulb, apparently it’s better to plan them separately)
Kristin Berkey-Abbott
We have had a stretch of farm stand eating. You may say, "Of course--it's July--it's how we're all eating." But I spent 24 years in South Florida, where summer is not a growing season, where growing any sort of vegetable during any month takes planning and good fortune and is likely to end in...
Michael / Chgowiz
Early May is less than 3 weeks away, and a lot of planting is going to happen! I’ve got my community garden plot and my own backyard container garden for vegetables for the family. I started planning back in January. I set up that my goal would be to grow mostly vegetables that are storable –...
Brian C. Becker
It’s been a remarkably warm fall so far but cooler October days are coming up, dipping down into the 40s next week. That means it’s time to get all the plans into the warm greenhouse so this Saturday was “greenhouse move-in day” where we get all the plants we took out of the greenhouse in early...
spetku
I lost some beloved young tomato plants this summer and I want to honor their life in a way that will remind me of them and make me smile each time I remember. I’ve always adored Japanese prayer slips,”ofuda”, for their spiritual function, and notable aesthetic. I also dig the concept of...
Brian C. Becker
Today I was encouraged to spend less time on screens and media consumption. Not entirely sure how I feel about this challenge, but I have been wanting to spend some more time gardening and on activities that I’ve just felt too lazy to do. Back in grad school, I did a #365days project with some...
Brian C. Becker
Last year my mango got scale and I fought it all year with not too much success (horticultural oil, scrubbing with toothbrushes dipped in insecticidal soap, neem oil). I noticed this week that the scale had spread to many other plants in my greenhouse and office So I swung into action and applied...
Brian C. Becker
Desk grow space with tomatoes and a banana With working from home dragging on, I’ve been slowly upgrading the room I’ve been using as an office with grow areas. I already had a grow area before on my desk, but now I’ve upgraded it. I bought a 42″ dog crate pan which is 1″ high so I could fill...
Brian C. Becker
First ripe Pinnochio tomato First harvest!! Just under 3 months from seed, both the Bonsai and the Pinnochio tomato plants had two ripe tomatoes and a bunch of other varieties like Window Box Red are looking close. First Bonsai tomato harvest! Given we found two ripe ones of each, my wife...
Brian C. Becker
Just under 10 weeks from seed and the first outdoor micro-dwarf tomato is starting to ripen! This is the Bonsai variety. First ripening micro-dwarf tomato!
Brian C. Becker
Two months in and my 10 outdoor micro-dwarf tomatoes are doing great! Most have lots of fruit. I measured the rough height and an approximate estimate of how much fruit there was on the plant. Micro-dwarf tomato status across the 10 different varieties. * means more than 2″ from the...
Brian C. Becker
Arrangement of tomato plants with light intensity measurement. I have two QB120 HLG lights with reflective sides around the back and sides of the sub irrigated bin. I measured the light intensity, which varied between 30k and 39k lux. Normal sunlight is ~100 lux, so on average I’m operating...
Brian C. Becker
After hardening off, I planted one of each of my 10 varieties in my designated outdoor garden plot (well the front half of the raised bed). It sits over my compost pile so is more of a large container than raised bed, but has drip irrigation that provides it with water so it doesn’t dry out too...
Brian C. Becker
Since many of my tomato seedlings were already starting to flower, I’ve been meaning to transplant them. I think I got fooled on when to transplant because they are so tiny and dwarf! Tonight I was able to get around to transplanting the indoor ones into my 27 gallon sub-irrigated bin. I have 10...
Brian C. Becker
Today I spent some time creating a new sub-irrigated bin to put the tomatoes in. I used a pretty even mix of potting soil (aka peat moss & decomposed mulch), my own compost, and vermiculite. This will be the bin the tomatoes get transplanted to for the indoors part of the test. Equipment...
Brian C. Becker
Tiny flowers already appearing! Only 4 weeks into the experiment and just noticed tiny flowers are appearing! That’s pretty crazy. I guess I was underestimating how mature the seedlings were because they were so tiny. I think the next step for this weekend is to transplant them to their final...
Brian C. Becker
Tomato thinning 3 weeks in, I figured it was time to thin the tomatoes. Since I had planted two seeds in each square, some had multiple growing tomatoes. For each square that had two, I gave the smaller, weaker tomato the chop. I now have exactly two tomato plants for each variety. The...
Brian C. Becker
First fertilization. All of the cells are up except one of the Yellow Canary, which means I probably overlooked it when planting Everything else is doing well and today I watered with half-strength fertilizer. I’ve also been rotating the seed flat periodically every few days to get light and...
Brian C. Becker
It’s Day 6 of the Micro Dwarf Tomato Experiment and almost all the tomato cells are up! Yellow Canary seems a bit slow, one cell has a half-sprouted tomato poking up and the other has nothing. I removed the clear plastic humidity lid and installed a fan. Almost all the tomatoes are up!
Brian C. Becker
It’s May 9th and snowing! “Yes, Pittsburgh is in the upper-20s. That will make it the 8th time in our climate records that Pittsburgh has observed temperatures below 30 degrees in the month of May.” (source: National Weather Service (NWS) Pittsburgh). But still not as bad as May 9th in 1966 when...
Brian C. Becker
Micro Tom Patio Choice Maskotka Background: A few years ago, I got interested in growing the smallest tomato, the Micro Tom as a curiosity, so I grew it in a small 4-6″ pot over the winter. It was super cute and provided a half-dozen tomatoes or so (but I didn’t have very much light, just...
Brian C. Becker
After harvesting some beans, planted some Black Vernissage tomatoes in one of my greenhouse sub-irrigated planters. The tomatoes were quite leggy so I planted them sideways. Also sprayed insecticidal soap for thrips and tried to get the cucumbers to grow back up the trellis
Brian C. Becker
On a strip of rigid insulation foam, red marks empty and green marks full on my sub-irrigated bin. I’ve been using Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIPs) using 27 gallon storage totes in my greenhouse, office, and basement for a couple years now. They solved the biggest problem I had in the first few...
Brian C. Becker
Prepped! Today was ~50F and sunny, so I got a chance to head outside and finish up the blueberry box section of berry corner. I dug down some to flatten out the bottom of the bin so it would have decent drainage (since I have clay soil) and then dumped in peat moss, garden soil, compost,...
Brian C. Becker
Potting up the seedlings! Today I spent some time up-potting my seedlings. I had some artichokes, tomatoes, and peppers that I had started a little while ago. I’m growing the seedlings on my desk in the study, so to facilitate less messy potting, I purchased a large 48×30″ dog crate pan. It has...
Brian C. Becker
Spring is here, though today in Pittsburgh the high was only 42 F. The greenhouse was nice and warm though, so I fertilized the plants in the greenhouse with standard Miracle Grow 10-10-10. I also sprayed the citrus and mango with chelated iron since they were looking a bit yellow. I’m almost done...