Growing organic tomatoes

I hate wasting time. Let me make it clear though, my time wasting doesn't include sitting on the front verandah staring into space, reading obscure books and websites, walking around aimlessly, drinking tea, casting 80 stitches on my needles, knitting a few rows, then unwinding it all, and re-starting. No, those activities are part of a normal week for me, they soothe my mind and remind me that I have the delicious luxury of time to do whatever I want and if my knitting is not as good as I want it to be, I can take more time with it. But sowing vegetable seeds that I leave too long before planting out or we have no use for, that, my friends, is a waste of time. 

Although we've been producing food in our backyard for the 14 years we've lived here, and in our old home before that, it's only in the last five or six years that I felt compelled to do it. I do it for a reason now, before it was a hobby and a way to eat fresh organic food without having to spend an arm and a leg to buy it. Now I believe we should use the land we live on, make it productive, remove ourselves from the passive food experience provided by  supermarkets and actively play a part in producing food for the table. That keeps us skilled and independent. We want to look after ourselves and do it for as long as possible.

So, we have a set group of vegetables we eat here and now that our family is growing, when they visit us or we visit them, we share the produce with them. Who knows, we may add a few new vegetables or new varieties in the coming seasons, but right now, we set and happy with what we grow. 

This is the potting box Hanno made for me last year. It comes in very handy when I'm potting a large number of seedlings - I don't waste potting mix and I have plenty of space to work in. You can see the long thin pots used to plant the tomato seedlings.  Below is the container of heirlooms planted up and set out in the morning sun.

One of our main crops is tomatoes. We have well and truly weaned ourselves off hybrid seeds and seedlings and grow only heirlooms or open pollinated seeds. My tomato of choice is the Brandywine. I love all the beefsteak tomatoes, but Brandywines are my favourite. We have a very heathy crop of tomatoes already producing in the garden and about 3 weeks ago I sowed a sprinkling of mixed heirloom tomatoes in a recycled plastic strawberry punnet, as our followup crop. They germinated and started growing well, and were ready for transplanting. I've found we get the best successes if we plant on the seedlings a couple of times - each time into a bigger container, before planting them in the garden. So yesterday, I did just that. To leave them any longer would have stressed them and the entire exercise would have been a waste of time.

These three photos are all of the same garden bed. The photo above was taken on 20 September, the photo below was taken yesterday, 13 days later, on 3 October.

This is our current crop of tomatoes. They are unknown beefsteaks, Siberians and Kotlas.

I like to choose long pots so the roots can travel deep down. I use good quality potting mix that drains well and water in with seaweed tea and a weak worm tea. The seedlings will take a couple of days to recover from the transplant, then they'll grow strongly, with just a bit of water every second day.  In about three weeks, I'll pot them on again, this time giving them a drink of sulphate of pot ash and another weak worm tea. When the plants start forming flowers, they'll be planted in the garden.  When they're planted out, I bury the stem up to the first set of leaves - doing this will allows tomatoes to develop more roots and will therefore be stronger and produce more fruit.

I've put all the pots in a container so they don't fall over. The container is a recycled plastic vegetable crisper bin from an old fridge that Hanno drilled plenty of holes in it to let any excess water drain away. All the teas I add, and the sulphate of potash, are organic. I don't see the point of putting harsh chemicals and manufactured fertilisers on home grown plants. You might as well buy your produce at the shop. Try to grow organically. It will give you beautiful food that is healthy, you will know what you're eating and you'll keep your land alive and productive. If you use mulches like straw, lucerne, old grass clippings, shredded paper and compost, you'll be enriching the soil as you go - and that is the best way to produce food.

There are 23 mixed heirloom tomatoes growing out there now. I have no idea what they'll turn out to be but there are three potato leaf varieties so one of them may be a brandywine. We could also have yellow, orange, green or black tomatoes, as well as reds and pinks.  It's a real surprise packet.  Hanno will choose those he wants to plant out and I'll take the rest of them up to the Centre to be part of the kitchen garden we're starting there.

The photo above is the St Pierre tomato on the day it was planted in the pot - 23 September. Below is the same tomato ten days later, 3 October. 

Tomatoes are one of the plants we can all grow. They'll even grow in a large pot, hessian bag or a bag of potting soil that has drainage holes in it.  I have potted a French heirloom called St Pierre in a large terracotta pot and it's doubled in size in two weeks. The St Pierre is a medium sized beefsteak variety with "superior flavour".  I'm looking forward to trying it. If you're in a flat or apartment and want to grow something, try one tomato. If you live alone, or are a couple, one good tomato plant will keep you in tomatoes for a couple of months.

If you've never eaten homegrown tomatoes, or heirlooms, be prepared for a delightful surprise. They're unlike anything you'll get at the supermarket and they may just lure you further into the wonderful world of home produced food.  There is nothing better for lunch than a sandwich made with your own baked bread, home grown tomatoes, a bit of vinegar, salt and pepper and maybe a soft boiled egg on the side. Add to that a cup of black tea or a fresh fruit juice and you have a lunch before you fit for the Queen.