I Like to Plant, Plant, Plant...

Did you ever sing that song in elementary school? "I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas..." I love getting annoying songs like that stuck in my head, er wait no I hate it. We made the mistake of playing "Friday" in front of Thing One. I feel like that song is like virtual rubbernecking. A car wreck you can't look away from. Some people's kids... Anyway enough rambling.

I never cease to be amazed that such a tiny seed can grow into a tomato plant as tall as I am. It's amazing even to see them at this stage, which also happens to be when they are ready to go out into the world garden. My babies always grow up so fast, unless of course my real child gets to them and pulls out a whole six pack of seedlings before I discover that he has crawled to the mini greenhouse. No biggie, it only took them six weeks and daily watering to grow that big! Good thing he's so cute. Anyway, I was ready to transplant the tomatoes a couple of weeks ago but couldn't because we were out of bananas. What's that? Yep, I never plant my tomatoes without two key ingredients:

egg shells and bananas. It's best to use ones that have been in the compost for a day or more because then they are a little softer and easier to chop up.

Tomatoes like to be planted deep, so I dig my hole and throw in a piece of peel and a shell and then chop them with my little spade and cover them with a little dirt.

Then I put in the plant, cover, firm soil, make a little well around it and water well.

See that on the left, it's parsley. I read somewhere that parsley is a perfect soil mate for tomatoes because they use different nutrients. We've had pretty great luck with tomatoes since we started using all these little tips. We also have gone to growing mostly determinates. That means the plant will only get so large (as opposed to indeterminate), then it puts all its energy into making juicy fruit instead of expanding its territory. It's the only way to go if you are doing tomatoes in pots. I can't wait to be enjoying tons of these in a couple of months. These are from last year. See, it works!

I hope you have a great weekend and I hope you get to do something dirty, like plant a tomato. : ) We'll be pardy-n pardy-n...since it's Friday and all. Fun. Fun. Fun. Fun.

Thanks for reading. 

-Haley