4 maters in SWCs

[BakCompat]

I've grown a few tomatoes for 5 years or so when the sun isn't destroying my garden in Deep South Texas. The drought of 2012-2013 mostly killed everything I had. 100+ contiguous days of 100+ degree temperatures was just a furnace. Even now, it's getting darn hot. Well, here's a few that I'm doing this year for you to check out and see how they do in Zone 9b in self watering containers. The growing medium is coco coir with worm castings and azomite mixed in. Liquid FoxFarm is added periodically when I feel like it with the water - probably 2-3 times a week. They started out on the North facing of the house under a monster mesquite tree and quickly grew extremely leggy with little foliage. After moving them to the East side, they get morning sun through noon, then a respite for the rest of the day.

Here they are freshly transplanted into their new SWCs from the store. My local grocery store had many heirlooms available for about 1/3 the price that the Big Box stores typically sell them for.


Mariana's Peace & Sungold


Yellow Pear & Black Krim


Here they are about 6 weeks later. The Krim and Yellow Pear are lopsided to the right and the Yellow Pear actually fell over. Tied it up temporarily.


Closeup of Sun Gold


Black Krim 1


More Black Krims!

I'm really looking forward to the Black Krims. I've heard plenty good. I've grown Yellow Pear before, but they didn't do well for me. One more try. The others are new for me and I hope they do well. We'll see.

[momato]

Looks great are you using earth boxes?


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[luigiwu]

Subirrigated is the only way I can garden (or else I kill everything!) So I let the plant decide when/how much it needs! I love it! I'm ridiculously excited about my black krims too. But this is just the start of the season for me...

[biodarwin]

Looking good! I will be growing some sungolds during our fall planting season. I am definitely looking forward to them.

[BakCompat]

momato: Thanks. These purple boxes are Growums brand boxes. I purchased them for $10 each on clearance from the "blue" Big Box store (which I prefer because they donated $10,000 to a community garden in my area) when they were on clearance a bit over a year ago IIRC. Normally, I think they wanted $30 each for them. They are essentially the same as an EarthBox, except that they ship with coconut coir as the grow medium instead of peat moss. You could change that out if you so desired, but for me, the selling point was the price! I bought all 4 of them and keep an eye out for them every time I go, to see if they will ever have them again.

luigiwu: I'm sold on self watering containers. I'm planning on building a few EarthTainers soon for larger growing capacity, but need to get some landscaping issues taken care of to open up East-facing areas for those containers. My full sun area raised beds get too darn hot and everything in them gets fried. I just ordered a piece of aluminet to cover that area, so I'm hoping that will change once it is in place.

biodarwin: Thanks! I haven't grown them before, so didn't know what to expect. They look like they are coming along nicely and producing pretty good clusters so far. It doesn't seem to be in full production yet, as the plants got little light initially before I moved them. The new flower clusters are longer with more flowers and there seems to be quite a few of them popping up now, so it seems to be coming along nicely. The flavor is not as pronounced as I would like, but they seem to be a good producer, so that will likely compensate.

[ricman]

Looks great...I love the SIP's huge fan myself.

Rick

[BakCompat]

I just pulled the first batch of matures off and ate them. The Krim was nice. Detected that smoky flavor I've read about. The Sun Golds were appropriately sweet. The Yellow Pear was bland and had little flavor. Hope that improves.