What started you growing tomatoes?

[elight]

I've always liked tomatoes, but I discovered just how good they can be a few years back when I lived in Israel for 10 months. There, the produce available fresh--never trucked more than a couple hours from where it was grown... not to mention, cheap. Tomatoes were usually 3 shekels per kilo, and sometimes as cheap as 1 shekel... that worked out to about $0.12/pound! They were also available year-round, as they would grow them in greenhouses and hydroponically.

When I returned to the States, I realized just how much I had been missing by eating the grocery store tomatoes we get here. So after a year or two, I decided I'd like to try to grow my own. Unfortunately, I lived in a ground-level, rear-facing apartment in Manhattan that got no light, and had had no access to outside space. When I moved out of the city to the suburbs last year, I decided to have my hand at gardening.

Mistakes/lessons from year #1:
1. Choose plants that fit what you're planting them in!
2. Use the right potting mix; not all are built the same.
3. Do not prune unless there is a good reason to.
4. Plan how you will support your plants before you plant them.
5. Harden off.
6. Don't overwater.
7. The "conventional wisdom" isn't always right... even if it is written in gardening books or is what everyone else is doing. If something is supposedly the right thing to do, ask WHY--then you both ensure you are actually doing the right thing, and learn something in the process!

This year I am planning on a reliable heirloom variety (Cherokee Purple, Mr. Stripey, etc.), a sweet cherry variety (Sunsugar, Sun Gold, Sweet 100s, etc.), and an early variety (Early Girl, preferrably bush variety if possible). Two will go into an EarthTainer, and the third into a 5-gallon bucket. I will also plant a bush cucumber and a pepper plant in 5-gallon buckets. The garden center said they'll have their transplants available mid-week this week, and I can't wait to go pick them up!

[Deborah]

My story isn't as interesting as all of these. In the 70's I was really into house plants (now I don't care for any but tall ficus trees) and I branched (pun intended) into container vegetable gardening.
That first taste of fresh raw peas is something I'll never forget, or biting into the first home grown red tomato in the sunshine.

[RebelRidin]

Although my reasons for doing it probably differ somewhat from the prior, I am at least a fourth generation gardener. My earliest memories of gardening are transplanting cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower and tomatoes. I wasn't even in school yet. It was my job to stick a plant in each hole and as soon as I could carry half a bucket of water, to give each one a drink too.

With the exception of a brief period as a teenager (when I absolutely detested it!) I have been gardening ever since and enjoying every minute of it. As far as tomatoes go.... No question about it, my first BLT hooked me for life.

[horses4jess]

My grandmother in KS had 16 Jetstar plants growing in her raised bed every year when I was a kid. I was 7 or 8 when, before she tilled for the spring, I found a volunteer at the edge of the bed. My mom gave up a few feet of her flowerbed, and that little transplanted volunteer gave the best-tasting tomatoes I've ever had (2", red, wonderfully sweet with a little acid kick). Of course, my only frame of reference at the time was Jetstar (which still is among my favorites), so maybe I've romanticized the taste over the years. I've saved seed from multiple plantings of Jetstar in hopes of getting close to that random F2, but no luck. It hasn't stopped me from trying every variety I can get my hands on to find a new favorite...

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by RebelRidin

With the exception of a brief period as a teenager (when I absolutely detested it!)

The best way to get a teenage boy to work very hard in the garden is fill the garden with teenage girls.
Then promise them the car keys so they can go to the local swimming hole after the work is done.
I know this to be true, it worked for me.

Worth

[texasrockgarden]

Aside from radishes, tomatoes are about the easiest thing in the garden to grow. Also, tomatoes are among the more costly veggie at the supermarket.

Last year I canned around 120 jars of tomato juice, sauce and salsa. I now have 9 jars remaining to last me until new crop starts coming in. Compare what I put up to the cost of store bought and the savings are significant even after the cost of seed and fertilizers and electricity to run the water well.

And, I just like the taste of homemade spaghetti sauce.

[livinonfaith]

My love of gardening was sparked a long time ago. My maternal Grandfather was a tobacco farmer and he also had the best vegetable garden ever. (at least it was to a little kid!)

I have very vivid memories of walking with him in the watermelon field, choosing a ripe Sugar Baby watermelon and cracking in open right there in the field. We would all grab a piece and eat it with the warm sticky juice running down our faces. Heaven!

Almost every year there would be something new, a yellow cucumber, a white eggplant, a new pea..... something. But most of it was varieties he grew year after year. I know his favorite corn was Silver Queen, but I don't know what his tomatoes were. He grew enough that he and Grandmamma fed five kids plus all of their many visitors. (and later, a ton of visiting grandkids) They rarely bought fruits or veggies from the store, certainly not local type produce. What they couldn't use, they traded or gave away.

When I had my son, fourteen years ago, I moved into a tiny little two bedroom apartment. The "back yard" consisted of a small covered stoop outside our sliding door and an expanse of dirt with a little grass. But it also backed up to one of the town baseball parks. So every summer night you could sit on the back stoop and watch the bats swooping around the huge park lights and hear the crowds laughing and cheering.

I decided that we needed a little more than that tiny stoop, so I asked permission and put in a little patio so that we would have a space to put a couple of chairs, my son's outdoor toys and a few large containers. First I started with a couple of tomatoes, then an eggplant, then a melon. I didn't get much food, but it was cheap and wholesome entertainment for a single mom with a young child.

We moved to a house in the country when my son was three and a half. By then I was hooked, but busy. I did a little gardening, but kept getting raided by the deer. It wasn't until I bought my house four and a half years ago that I really started getting interested in heirloom tomatoes and seeds.

The house I bought had a wired greenhouse and a nice sized workshop. Suddenly I had the space that I had always dreamed of to experiment. I'm still not a great gardener like my Granddad, but last year I had 11 tomato varieties and this year I'm trying 21.

I have three hopes for my gardening. One, that someday my Granddad will look down on me and be proud. Two, that I can have enough tasty stuff to keep me and my parents in fresh produce, at least during the summer. Three, that someday my son will decide that gardening isn't stupid and boring, after all!