Training Tomatoes To Live Outside
The last week of April and the first week of May I set aside time to “harden-off” my almost-six-inch-high young tomatoes. This gets the little darlings used to the outdoors with all its dangers–direct sun, wind, varying temperatures...it’s a jungle out there. Now...
Transplanting Tomato Seedlings Part II
I’m ready to move my large-enough tomato seedlings into 4 inch “Cow Pots”–1 seedling per pot. Tomato plants have the unusual-and-useful characteristic of being able to grow roots from the stems (adventitious roots), and I am going to take full advantage of this...
Why Your Plants Need More Than Fertilizer (N-P-K)
When you buy fertilizer, whether chemical or organic, you’ll see three numbers separated by dashes boldly standing out on the package; such as 5-6-5. You might already know that they stand for the percentage of NPK contained in the fertilizer. N stands for Nitrogen, P...
Time To Transfer Tomato Seedlings
Here is the next entry in Tomato Jim's ongoing process of growing tomatoes from seed to last fruit. It’s time to move some of the seedling tomatoes into 4 inch pots! The ideal size for this transplant is when the seedlings have two sets of TRUE leaves (past the...
What is Humic Acid?
While humic acid is still a relatively new concept to those not professionally involved in agriculture and gardening and is not widely available except through Internet or direct mail outlets, there is no denying the vast benefits it offers to all types of soils and...
Who is Tomato Jim?
Jim Mast, a master gardener for the last 20 years, is now a regular contributor for our blog. He will be sharing with us his methods for growing tomatoes from start to finish. We have already posted two entries on how he prepares and sets up for tomato seedlings. We...
Grow Light System for Tomatoes
We have asked master gardener Jim Mast to share his tomato growing experience from seedlings to final fruit. Here is his second post as he gets his tomato seed sprouting process together. The next project for growing tomatoes is assembling the Grow Light System. It...
Preparing For Tomato Growing
We have asked master gardener Jim Mast to share his tomato growing experience from seedlings to final fruit. Here is his first post as he gets his tomato seed sprouting process together. It's time to get some green growing, so we'll start the tomatoes. I brought in...
The Benefits of Using Compost
Whether one has a green thumb or is a complete gardening novice, everyone agrees that compost is a “good thing”. At the same time, very few of us are aware of the specific compost benefits to our garden soil. So the following is a list of compost benefits agreed upon...