Albert's Greenhouse

I planted tomatoes last weekend. Tomato seeds, that is.

Living in the suburbs of Silicon Valley as I do, I don't have a lot of room for sprawling viney plants. Still, I find the room to grow tomatoes. Of all the vegetables you can grow in your garden, they are perhaps the most rewarding - in season, even the poorest backyard tomato outshines what you can get at the grocery store. And there's something of value in eating that which you have nurtured yourself.

We experiment with varieties. Heirlooms, hybrids, free seeds that came with the yearly burpee order. This year, I'm trying 5 kinds: Black Cherry, Sungold, Brandywine, Better Boy and Green Zebra. I've tried these all before, but depending on the year, one or another will do better or worse. Those that do worse perhaps deserve another chance. Those that do better are obviously keepers. And the seed packet is not yet finished, so... we plant more than we really need.

I grow the vines hanging in 5 gallon plastic buckets. It reduces disease and pests, it stunts the vines a bit, and it looks pretty cool. Last year, my potting mix did not have sufficient fertilizer early on, so I got a pretty late and pretty small harvest, once I managed to add some triple-sixteen. This year, that problem will be rectified.

Last year something was eating the tomatoes. I think it was one of the black squirrels that run around the neighborhood. We have underground powerlines in my neighborhood, and I often wonder how that effects the squirrel population. They have no bypasses on which to cross the streets, but I don't see little squirrel bodies littering the roads. We are careful drivers.

I've placed the tomato seeds in jiffy-7 peat pellets, set them in a little humidity dome "greenhouse", placed the tray on my heating pad, and am now waiting for the first little green shoots to poke their way through the soil. It's not that the peat pellets are necessarily better for seed starting, but they are easy to use, relatively cheap ( I picked up an entire case from Mellinger's before they closed ), and above all, convenient. Other than the black cherry, which is very slow to start, I expect to see some results real soon now...