Friday 17 September 2010

growing tomatoes - week 1

I was at the supermarket the other day and out of whim, I picked up a pot plant of tomato seedlings and decided that I would grow my own tomatoes. It costed me $3 and it's been a week now and thankfully, the plant is still alive and growing strong. It'll be another 8-10 weeks before I see my first tomatoes and I'm sure there's plenty I need to do before that before I'll see anything and well, both mum and the boy are watching me with quite amused expressions everytime I run out the back to give the plant a water. Both think I'm going to kill the plant very soon and yes I admit, that has happened in the past but I'm adamant that this won't be the case this time round!

This was the only pot I had at home. It'll have to do for the time being. In another week or two, I'll need to shop for a larger pot - the instructions recommend you grow these in at least an 80L pot.

The boy kindly picked up some sticks from the yard for me, instructions say to have the sticks in there to control the growth of the shoots. Need to read up on this one but in the meantime, have haphazardly made an arrangement of them in the pot.

Meet my pot of soon-to-be tomatoes!

Really quite excited about my pot of tomatoes! Coincidentally, my copy of Stephanie Alexander's 'Kitchen Garden Companion' came in from Book Depository the other day and has a chapter on growing tomatoes plus recipes which will definitely come in handy. Hopefully in my next update I'll have learnt a bit more about tomato growing and share some tips for those also keen to give it a go! By the way, I can't believe how cheap Book Depository is. My copy of the 'Kitchen Garden Companion' cost me $23.00 and it ended up being the hardback version (when I thought I'd ordered the paperback version). I can't believe how that book can retail for $125.00 here in Australia. Makes no sense to me!

3 comments:

Rita (mademoiselle délicieuse) said...

A lot of books are printed in the UK and books generally retail for cheaper there. What amazes me is the free shipping!

Looking forward to seeing some homegrown tomatoes from you. I've often toyed with the idea of growing herbs and chillies in a planter box on our balcony but I, er, have a rather good track record of killing plants =p

Lil said...

Book depository is the best. Especially for saving on uni textbooks!

panda said...

mademoiselle delicieuse - probably a good thing that i don't live in the uk else i'd be buying way to many books; the receptionist at work has already queried me about all the books that i'm buying :( I do hope my following 'growing' posts give you some inspiration - it's not too hard (i don't think but fingers crossed)

lil - i wish i knew about bookdepository earlier cause cheap uni textbooks would've come in so handy!