Looking for advice

Asimov · May 23, 2015

Newbie here, I will apologise in advance for what will probably be a long winded post, but I will post everything that might be relevant and see what people say.

Okay the situation is: The gardening bug bit me and the wife this year, but neither one of us are really good at it. I havent met a house plant yet that we havent managed to kill. Im pretty sure we have some fake plants that died on how. HOWEVER, we want to overcome that and we bought a bunch of trees and shrubs (Cherry, plum, haskap, blueberry, strawberry, pineberry, haskap, spearmint, dill, chives, if you were curious). I planted some peas from seed, and finally, a Rapunzel tomato.

Ok, so while we at the greenhouse we came across something called a 'Tomato Barrel' which blew my mind at the time with the whole wicking from the bottom-self watering-thing (further research has revealed that this is NOT new technology, and I have some EarthBoxes currently in the mail, but I digress)

A bag of coconut coir came with the Tomato Barrel, and one of the Tomato plants on display was in one of these containers, planted in the coconut coir. There wasnt very good instructions with the thing, so I dont think I packed the coir into the wicking area properly, therefore I am not sure it is wicking properly and I dont think I can fix it without disturbing the plant a lot.

Ok, so fast forward roughly a month or so, and here are my questions.

1) It looks like perhaps a 100% coir medium was not a good idea, if I wanted to is it possible to re plant this without hurting it terribly, and if I can, should I?

2) If I cant move it, or if I simply dont want to move it, what should I do to give it the best chance at survival / thriving?

3) How can I tell if the plant is unhealthy? I meant it LOOKS fine to me, but I am about as far from an expert as it gets. I figure in roughly a month it has grown about 3 inches. From maybe 6-7 inches to 10 inches (roughly), and it is putting out flowers.

Other possibly relevant info off the top of my head:

I live in zone 3, I have probably about 3 months ahead of nice warm to hot weather (77F-95F, 25C-35C most likely)

Last frost was last weekend (I brought it into the shed overnight)

Thanks for reading and any advice

May 23, 2015	#1
Asimov Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2015 Location: Lamont, Alberta Posts: 17	Looking for advice Newbie here, I will apologise in advance for what will probably be a long winded post, but I will post everything that might be relevant and see what people say. Okay the situation is: The gardening bug bit me and the wife this year, but neither one of us are really good at it. I havent met a house plant yet that we havent managed to kill. Im pretty sure we have some fake plants that died on how. HOWEVER, we want to overcome that and we bought a bunch of trees and shrubs (Cherry, plum, haskap, blueberry, strawberry, pineberry, haskap, spearmint, dill, chives, if you were curious). I planted some peas from seed, and finally, a Rapunzel tomato. Ok, so while we at the greenhouse we came across something called a 'Tomato Barrel' which blew my mind at the time with the whole wicking from the bottom-self watering-thing (further research has revealed that this is NOT new technology, and I have some EarthBoxes currently in the mail, but I digress) A bag of coconut coir came with the Tomato Barrel, and one of the Tomato plants on display was in one of these containers, planted in the coconut coir. There wasnt very good instructions with the thing, so I dont think I packed the coir into the wicking area properly, therefore I am not sure it is wicking properly and I dont think I can fix it without disturbing the plant a lot. Ok, so fast forward roughly a month or so, and here are my questions. 1) It looks like perhaps a 100% coir medium was not a good idea, if I wanted to is it possible to re plant this without hurting it terribly, and if I can, should I? 2) If I cant move it, or if I simply dont want to move it, what should I do to give it the best chance at survival / thriving? 3) How can I tell if the plant is unhealthy? I meant it LOOKS fine to me, but I am about as far from an expert as it gets. I figure in roughly a month it has grown about 3 inches. From maybe 6-7 inches to 10 inches (roughly), and it is putting out flowers. Other possibly relevant info off the top of my head: I live in zone 3, I have probably about 3 months ahead of nice warm to hot weather (77F-95F, 25C-35C most likely) Last frost was last weekend (I brought it into the shed overnight) Thanks for reading and any advice