I apologize if these EarthTainer updates are getting boring! When we grew our last tomato plants three years ago, they looked nothing like these, so we’re really excited with how well things are going, and I want to document the process so we know what we want to change next year.
As you can see, the plants are gigantic. I know the height is a bit deceiving because they’re already up off the ground a bit due to the container, but they’re about as tall as Mike and I are. You can’t even see the cages anymore!
Speaking of which, you can barely see it, but this weekend we had to anchor both cages to my poor Meyer lemon tree to the left there. The plants had both started leaning to the right a bit and taking the cages with them, so we gave it a bit more stability. We also gently secured some of the larger branches to the cage.
Next year we will definitely be attaching the recommended cage to the container!
It’s a good thing tomatoes turn red when they’re ripe because these little guys are getting harder to spot now that the yellow blossoms are dropping off.
Mike also ran a line from our drip system into the watering pipe. We’ll still be manually filling it up with the hose, but this just insures that it’s not going to get completely dry between fill-ups.
I also just realized that I’ve never shown how we put up our solar shade. We did this last August with solar sheets we bought at Lowe’s. I don’t remember what the package said, but I want to say it blocks up to 60% of the sun’s rays or UV damage (it blocks something!). We did this mainly because, while we love our little courtyard area, it turns into a virtual oven in the summer months.
It’s surrounded by windows (two sets of sliding doors, our front doors — which are all glass — and two windows next to the front doors. There is also a smaller set of windows that go into the laundry room) and when it gets full sun during the day it raises the temperature of the surrounding rooms quite a bit, too (regardless of curtains and shades!).
So we designed the set-up ourselves, and spent a long, hot afternoon putting it up. It made a noticeable difference in temperature, and you can see from the band of sun across the sliding door how much it blocks. It’s slackened a bit in the last eight months so we’re going to tighten it up again soon, but hopefully it’ll keep the plants from frying.
We also decided we’re going to hold off on planting anything else for this season. I really want to grow some zucchini and peppers and jalapenos, but we need to make sure the tomatoes make it through the summer heat okay before we invest in any more container equipment and grow media.
