Mar152012

EarthTainer Update #2

earthtainer

We’re just about four weeks into our EarthTainer tomato project, and if you look at the pictures I took two weeks ago you can see how much they’ve grown since then. They’re going nuts!

They’re nearly a foot tall, and we’re going to have to get the cages up around them this weekend since they’re also spreading out quite a bit, and we don’t want to hurt the branches getting them set up. I also carefully trimmed off the lowest branches earlier this week since they were dropping down onto the container, and this weekend I’m going to tackle the suckers that are sprouting up, too.

The best part:

The Sweet 100s are starting to blossom!

Mar32012

EarthTainer Update

EarthTainer Tomatoes

So we’re two weeks in with our EarthTainer tomatoes, and they seem to be doing really well. Each plant has grown a couple of inches and they’re spreading out a bit more, and there are bunches of tiny new leaves.

The plant on the left is Sweet 100’s. We only got about a dozen or so the last time we planted and I hope we get a lot more this way. The site says they’ll keep producing right up until frost (which we don’t really get here), but even a few months’ worth would be amazing.

The plant on the right is Beefsteak. This is our first try with those and I’m really hoping they work.

As soon as they hit a foot tall or so we’ll have to get the cages up around them.

Not having to go out and water them every day is still taking a little getting used to. Right now they’re only needing about 1/2 a gallon of water every four days or so, but that will change once we heat up (that’s what the white pipe is for, by the way. You pour the water into that and it goes directly down to the water chamber).

I think within the next month we’ll be starting at least two more. We’ve talked about what else we want to plant, and most of them will need to go in within the next few weeks. I want to do some zucchini and sugar snap peas, and we both want jalapenos and bell peppers. Honestly, I’d love to try corn as well but I can’t get over how funny that would look on the patio.