My first garden in 15 years

[Fiishergurl]

Here are a few pictures of an impossible garden. Impossible because 1. I live in Central Florida which is hot, humid and not friendly to tomatoes, 2. I haven't grown anything in over 15 years, 3. Although we live in Orlando, we spend most of our time at our RV on the intracoastal waterway and the garden is 10-15 feet from the salt water, and 4. The winds here HOWL the majority of the time.

But in spite of all of this, our container garden is doing great so far. It's a hodge podge right now because tomorrow we are moving to another spot in the RV park so I haven't staked properly or arranged everything the way I want it to be. We had the grey mold already and had to prune heavily and spray, also had some spider mites which we sprayed for, but at this point we have about 50 tomatoes growing on various plants. I will post better pictures once we move to our new site and have the pots all arranged better.

Have learned so much from this site and some people that have emailed with me and answered a million questions. Thank you to all of you who respond to newbies and have so much patience with us. I work more than full time and try to research but often get more confused from all the conflicting data so it's awesome to be able to come on here and ask questions real time and get direct answers.


First picture was taken around March 6th. The brown container on the left and grey container on the right (with the bungee cords around it) had been transplanted around the first week of February. The plants in these containers were the beginning of our garden. The middle container between them were transplanted the day the picture was taken (on or about March 6th).



The picture below has the same plants as above (moved around some to get the most morning sun) and I just took the picture this morning. There are about 50 tomatoes total on three of the 5 larger plants with lots and lots of blooms.


This last picture is facing into the sun, so it's washed out, but I just took this to show how close the plants are to the salt water. Yikes! We are surprised the plants made it this long. We put up wind breaks when the wind gets over 10mph (which is just about every day) because it will gust up to 20-25. When we move to the new spot we will be farther from the water and should have more protection from the winds. The main concerns here are fungus, mold, bacteria and the problems from the wind and critters that spread it from plant to plant.



Better pictures next time, I promise!

Ginny

[kurt]

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...hlight=Seaagri

Some salt will not harm maters.Accumalated overspray from waves might.

[mdvpc]

Looks good.

[Fiishergurl]

Originally Posted by kurt

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...hlight=Seaagri

Some salt will not harm maters.Accumalated overspray from waves might.

That is fascinating! I read the post but later plan to go to the website and read more. Thanks for the link.

Ginny

[gssgarden]

Keep it up!! Looks good!!

Greg

[BucksCountyGirl]

Looking good!

[Salsacharley]

I bet it is a TON of fun to move those containers around.
Your vines look nice and thick.

[Fiishergurl]

Originally Posted by Salsacharley

I bet it is a TON of fun to move those containers around.
Your vines look nice and thick.

Hahaha... NOT! Fortunately we rarely move them. So far we have mostly used a folding table tied to the heavy wooden picnic table as a wind block from the south when needed. The east and west winds are blocked just enough by our RV and the neighbor's RV. The north winds are blocked by the structure behind the plants plus some strategically placed plywood or other flat items that slide in between the structure and the plants. We did however move all of the plants right up next to the RV this past weekend when a front came through with possible 65 mph gusts. That wasn't fun but the alternative might have been scattered vines and I didn't want to risk that.

I don't even know what type some of the first plants we bought are. (I know, gasp!)... lol. In January I thought a tomato plant is a tomato plant is a tomato plant so we bought a couple and when we transplanted them hubby threw away the little markers that came with them. Then the plants starting growing so well I started looking for more and I was hooked and found out how wrong I was about a tomato plant being a tomato plant. Don't get me wrong... our reason for growing some is because we don't like the ones at the grocery store, but I had no idea there were so many varieties out there to choose from. I am totally addicted!

Ginny

[Ken4230]

Originally Posted by Fiishergurl

I don't even know what type some of the first plants we bought are. (I know, gasp!)... lol. Ginny

Tomato plants seem to breed like rabbits. Shortly, you will be up to your ears in plants and have no idea where they all came from.
It's probably in your best interest to start looking for a home with a much larger yard.


I do wish you good luck. That's a bunch of cherry tomato plants

Ken

[Fiishergurl]

Originally Posted by Ken4230

Tomato plants seem to breed like rabbits. Shortly, you will be up to your ears in plants and have no idea where they all came from.
It's probably in your best interest to start looking for a home with a much larger yard.

Hahaha... you are so right! I heard that cherry tomatoes might keep producing in the heat of summer in Florida so somehow I ended up with a bunch of cherry tomato plants... black cherry, sweet million, super sweet sunsugar, tumbling tom, maskotka, and the whole variety pack of the Artisan cherry tomatoes (lucky tiger, pink bumblebee, etc, etc). For the most part I only have 1 plant of each which is plenty, except for the tumbling tom and maskotka. I got the Artisan seeds very late for starting here now, so I purposely only germinated one of each of the 7 types since I actually bought them to try for the fall because I don't know if they will do ok in the heat here starting them so late. But I couldn't wait so what was the harm in trying one plant of each... lol. But IF all those cherry tomato plants do mature and produce tomatoes, what in the world are we going to do with them all? And the other 8 or so tomato plants (beefsteak and other non cherry types) already have about 60-70 tomatoes between all the plants. There are so many blooms that it seems right now there are about 10 new tomatoes showing up each day. Most are eraser size or smaller with about 15-20 being a little larger and a few being golf ball size, so still a long way to go before we have any to try out. I just keep hoping they will make it that long since we have so many things working against us here. I'm supplementing the containers which had lime and 10-10-10 fert strip with Texas Tomato Food but trying not to over do it.

And the RV spot we are moving too actually has much more space but that might not be a good thing.... lol.

Anyways wish us luck! Hoping to have some home grown tomatoes to try out soon if the critters and the heat and humidity don't get to them first... :-)

Ginny

[Vespertino]

That's a mighty fine looking garden for being out of practice for 15 years! Very impressive!

[Fiishergurl]

Originally Posted by Vespertino

That's a mighty fine looking garden for being out of practice for 15 years! Very impressive!

Thank you! We are loving it. Thanks to all the great information on these forums our neighbors think we have a humongous green thumbs. We told them we were just following advice from what other people have found successful. Love this forum and all of the people that have helped us out.

Ginny