I want to grow my own tomato's, and maybe other veggies too. I need a bit of advice please...

Tesco has a cool range of organic vegetables, and fruits

i have never planted anything either... cept for a few apple seeds/cantelope seeds/watermelon seeds that i threw in the dirt and hoped that would grow :P

get even water never let them dry out alot of sun they like heat some people like big tomato's some like small

I use to buy what they called 'Grow Bags' a bag of compost, good quality peat, and transplant the tomato seedlings in that, and leave in the greenhouse, making sure they were watered every day. Pinch out the side shoots as well when the plants get to 4 or 5 inches high. Best of luck.

Its disgusting though, how the government of England pays farmers lots of money to use human shit as fertiliser. Its disgusting and smells even worse.

Perhaps growing your own might be a good thing

In China it is called night soil.Same human shit different name.

Make sure there are drainage holes in the buckets.
Rocks in the bottom of the buckets for drainage.

And most important, cover the sides of the buckets so they are in shade! The sun hitting the plastic will cause temps to reach over 100 degrees and cook the roots.

Try some Roma and cherry tomatos too while you're at it.

go ta this site

baker creek heirloom seeds

[link to www.rareseeds.com]

another good one


[link to www.theheirloomgardener.com]

get this yrs Farmers Alamanac ..tell you when to plant by the moon phases for best results, I put in my first garden and fantastic results first time..follow it cause farmers use it...use sevins dust for pesticide.. 8-8-8- for fetilizer...all this works for any beginner...you gonna be proud of yourself..pass it along..follow the book completely..f you miss a moon phase you must wait for the next right moon phase.....do not deviate at all..no matter what anyone says..pros use it.

Best Soil = Mel's Mix - You make it from scratch from 3 ingredients:

1. 33% compost (made from homemade compost or at least 5 different brands of commercial compost)

2. 33% Vermiculite, course

3. 33% Peat Moss

Mix all together & saturate it with water.
It's the basic component of Square Foot Gardening.

[link to www.squarefootgardening.com]

Will this happen even though I live on the Oregon coast, and the summer temperatures rarely get over 80, and usually stay around 70? Also, won't the white buckets reflect the sun, instead of the plastic getting hot?

[link to aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu]

[link to www.coopext.colostate.edu]

I don't know where you live, but here in north Texas we have a LOT of chlorine in our water. Last year, Hubby did a chlorine test on the tap water, and then on the pool. There was more chlorine in the tap water even though we'd just adjusted the chemicals in the pool. Ack! If you are going to water a container garden, it's best to do it by hand, and it's best to pour your tap water into a big bucket and let it off-gas the chlorine for a day or two before you use it. I didn't know about it last year, and I made a mess of things. It's MUCH better now. I keep a 5-gallon bucket of water for my watering needs.

[link to www.youtube.com]
YOUTUBE: Build a self-watering container (for food production).

[link to www.sunset.com]
Ultimate veggie garden
(for the urban gardener)

[link to www.cleanairgardening.com]
Topsy Turvy Upside Down Tomato, Flower and Vegetable Planter
MY NOTE: cool way to grow veggies. They hand out of the bottom of the container. This is a commercial site, but you get great ideas from stuff like this.

[link to www.seedsofknowledge.com]
Growing Tomatoes Upside Down?
An Alternative Garden Plan
By Kathi Morris
Non-commericial; use 5-gallon buckets to grow tomatoes and other veggies. NOTE: my sister called on Monday and said she'd had a conversation with an older man at her work; he's an avid gardener. He said you can grow all sorts of VINING vegetables and fruits, upside down, in buckets.

[link to www.containergardeningtips.com]
Plants that are well suited for container gardening

[link to www.tinkersgardens.com]
Companion Planting

[link to www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk]
More Companion Planting

[link to aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu]
Vegetable Gardening In Containers

[link to www.diynetwork.com]
Growing Tomatoes in Hanging Baskets

[link to www.gardeningbythemoon.com]
Gardening by the phases of the moon is a technique that can speed the germination of your seeds by working with the forces of nature.

Plants respond to the same gravitational pull of tides that affect the oceans, which alternately stimulates root and leaf growth. Seeds sprout more quickly, plants grow vigorously and at an optimum rate, harvests are larger and they don't go to seed as fast. This method has been practiced by many for hundreds of years, and is a perfect compliment to organic gardening because it is more effective in non-chemically treated soil. ...
(I bought the calendar...and I love it. I use it and the Farmers Almanac. I've been very fortunate this year; my thumb just might turn green after all!)

[link to www.backwoodshome.com]
THE BEST CITY GARDEN

[link to www.toppers-place.com]
Pop bottle pots (self-watering, too)

I want to add a few thoughts and ideas...

I have a Meyer lemon tree. I live in the southern end of Denton County, TX, just above Lewisville Lake. This is not commonly known as a CITRUS-GROWING area, but I have had good success growing the Meyer lemons and a mandarin orange. My dwarf citrus trees are in BIG containers, and they live up against the south-facing wall of my bricked home. This past crop of lemons were the first; I bought the tree in 2005, and the 2007 lemons were FABULOUS. They were juicy and great. The mandarin orange tree has produced only one orange (bought it in 2006), but this year I'm seeing tons of blooms. I didn't get that last year. I'm excited!

There's a woman down in Dallas who keeps her Meyer lemon trees in a green house in the winter. I don't have a green house. But the south-facing bricked wall stays warm enough in the winter to keep the tree happy. I didn't even cover it this winter. The mandarin orange tree is living in a BIG pot just a few feet away from the lemon; it's against the south-facing wall, too.

I'm thinking of adding a few more dwarf citrus trees, if I can find them.

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Compost is your friend. Hubby built a compost cooker for me a couple of weeks ago, and the compost is already smelling earthy and rich. Hubby used a 55-gallon barrel (food grade) to make our compost cooker. We had two choices for the design, and we chose a horizontal set-up. We built it with some design instructions, but we modified it.

HOWEVER...there's a couple on YouTube who built the vertical compost cooker that was our alternate choice. Theirs seems much easier than ours. Wish I'd found this video BEFORE we'd built ours...although the one we have is great!

********

[link to www.youtube.com]

In this episode of The Urban Homesteaders, Ben builds a compost turner using 100% salvaged materials. Sorry again for the sound... we still are without real video equipment, so we're using a macbook as our only video recorder.

Stay tuned! We're building another compost bin this week, and in the next month or so, we'll be comparing the quality of compost from both!
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​

We built our compost cooker out of salvaged materials, too. We bought the bar that goes thru the middle, and we bought handles and hinges. But Ben and Kristin used a different type of barrel, with a screw-on lid (instead of a hinged lid like ours), and I think it's a much easier system to build.

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Go dumpster diving!!! We spent all of last Saturday and Sunday diving thru dumpsters at a home construction site, and got more than 100 board feet of FREE wood for our raised beds. We also recovered cedar fencing (can be used to make smaller beds and/or repair our cedar fence out back), a host of black pots and trays that some landscaper tossed, and enough OSB plywood to make two shed roofs and the roof of a chicken coop. Cost? NUTHIN.

Awesome !! RHSC

They most certainly don't!

Anyway night soil used to be used on the fields but there is a great danger of cholera etc. if it gets into ground water.

However, if you want to speed up your compost heap then piss in it. What do you think they make compost accelerators from?

Human shit can be added to a very hot aerobic compost, then fed to worms.
We used seaweed, urine, fish offal, straw, kitchen scraps, as well in the hot compost. The resulting 'worm-cast' does not contain residual pathogens.

Get your buckets.

Prepping the Buckets:

Get a 1/2 inch drill bit - drill about 5-6 holes around the bottom on the outside of the bucket approximately 1/2 inch above the bottom. This will keep some water in the bucket. The lowest roots of the tomato will reach for it, in addition the bark will absorb some of it - adding weight to the bucket and water will wick up to the upper soils to keep the tomato watered longer.

Put something like a couple of bricks or a solid stone in the center of the bottom. The plant will grow tall so you want something heavy to hold it upright.

Get a bag or two of large grade bark. (depending on how many plants you are growing) Put in about 4-5 inches of bark. This

Mix regular potting soil with compost - also comes in bags - a 1 to 1 ratio works best.

Get a long (about 5' long) poles - set pole firmly in bark, pour in your soil compost mix to about half full. Tamp in soil firmly until it holds up the pole. You will be tying the tomato on this pole as it grows - ideally the pole should be near the center. Its ok to step in the bucket to tamp that soil tight - this will provide a soil base to hold up the pole and will provide a soil grab for the roots.

Pour in about 1/4 bucket more of the soil - tamp lightly - unlike the lower bit you want this loose and airy - snug but not too compacted.

If using plants put one plant per pot: fill the soil until the plant set in the soil is about 1-2 inches below the rim of the bucket. Set plant in the middle and pour in about 1 inch more soil than the base of the tomato plants package soil.

DO NOT tamp that down - leave it very loose.

Finish off with 1 inch of shredded bark, pulling it away from the stem of the plant about 2 inches radius (4 inches in diameter) Water fully - until the water drains out of the holes.

Shredded bark will keep down weeds, hold in moisture and will slowly rot - rotted organic material is compost - very rich in food stuff for plants.
For seeds: Your last bit of tamped soil should be about 6 inches from the top - fill to around 2 inches from the rim. Plant 3 seeds about 1 1/5 in from each other from the center. Mulch, leaving a circle of soil where the seeds are.

As the seed germinate and grow and when they are 4 to 6 inches tall - pull the two weakest/smallest ones.

Place the bucket to where it gets full sunlight. As the tomato plant grows tie it snuggly (not tightly) to the pole with something like strips of t-shirt material. That cotton material has a bit of give to it - which is needed as the plant grows thicker.

The one to one ration of compost to potting soil (use a cheap off the shelf exterior potting soil - nothing harmful in that) will provide the plant with more than enough food until it starts producing.

Reserve about 1/4 bag of compost. When the plants start producing fruit (after they flower) you will want to take another 5 gallon bucket (no holes) toss in about a shovel full of compost - fill with water and let sit over night. The following day you will have 'compost tea' the water will be black/brownish - full of good stuff for the plant. Use that to water with as needed.

When the plants start flowering, brush your hand over the tops of the plants. This will cause pollen to drop down through the plant, fertilizing all of the flowers below. Old wives tale has it that if you brush the top of the plant with your hand it will produce more tomatoes and remain shorter.

To keep your tomatoes safe to eat, refrain from using chemical fertilizers (compost and compost tea is all you really need) and use soaps instead of insecticides to control pests.

Bucket or pot growing has the advantage that far fewer soil diseases and soil pests are present. Meaning your tomatoes have a much better change.

Also keep your eye on the growing tomatoes. Birds, rats, mice, rabbits and other assorted critters will take a bite out of several - they never just attack one.

Netting works well to keep most larger critters out. Netting is bad if you are relying on lady bugs and pollinating insects to do their jobs.

AKA night soil:

Night soil is great stuff - it must be fully composted before using on plants. Once composted it is soil - plain and simple.

Chicken, pig, goat, cow, horse, all sorts of manures are used by organic gardeners. Most with outhouses reserve their outhouse stuff for things like fruit trees, shrubbery, etc.

Of course they compost it first.

... it's getting way too late for seeds now... soooo, go to your grocers and/or local nursery (in the next couple of weeds or so) and ask them for heirloom plants (and they ought to be like around 4 to 6 plants for $1.49 - $1.99 at the most)... and as in Super Sioux, Early Girl, Glamor, Big Boy, etc.

DON'T FORGET -- the plants will be tall and need support. You will need something to tie the plant up on.

Have had very good results using ground eggshells and seaweed and fish emulsion for fertilizer. Compost also. We use raised beds. Home grown is wonderful. It'll ruin you forever regarding store-bought produce.

grow potato's, its very very easy but you gatta be careful of them potato famines from those crazy British exporting.

There is some good advice so far in this thread.

I have grown tomatoes in buckets, drain holes yes, etc.

I dig a trench and put the buckets outside in the summer and bank soil up on the sides to cool the buckets.

Flavor starts with a decent seed, but the truth is that you can purchase a good tasting tomato and use the seeds right out of store tomatos. Don't bother drying them; just put them straight into potting soil.

Flavor continues from having a fertile soil that has a lot of readily available nutrient structure. If you can shovel up some topsoil from a place under trees with some natural humus, that will be very good growing medium.

After that, full sun and plenty of sun makes things healthy and sweet. I remember that the blackberries and huckleberries on the coast of Washington were not as sweet as blackberries and huckleberries that grew east of the coastal range where it was dryer and got more sunshine.

For me, high altitude in west Montana; it freezes too soon so I carry the buckets inside my greenhouse to finish the ripening process in the fall.

Good Luck!

Look carefully on seed packets for the words "indeterminate" or "determinate"

A determinate type will likely be described as a "bush" or "patio" type.

They don't grow tall and try to make vines.

Heat without ultraviolet makes spindly and tall plants. Lots of ultraviolet makes the stems thicker and stronger.

I had gorgeous tomatoes last year, and chili peppers and bell peppers too.
I used NO pesticides whatsoever, and lost about ten percent to worms and bugs, but had more than I could have dreamed.. every plant produced more than we could count, they grew in fives, and you'd have twenty coming ripe at once on every plant.

There is no waste, really, if you give the eaten tomatoes back, and really, who says the worms aren't entitled to a cut, the soil would suck without them!

Ladybugs are awesome, and eat aphids, if I remember correctly. We saw tons of them gobbling the little white bugs on the leaves.

Last year was the first time I did anything large scale, and it was an incredible experience. We canned about six cases of tomato sauce, using the ones that had ripened too much to sit around. It's difficult to transport vine ripened tomatoes. You really can't stack them.

Even if you just plant three or four plants you will see a nice yield. It's like magic, really.

By teh way, planting chile peppers on the perimeter of the garden will keep animals from grazing there, and they are beautiful and require next to no care. Even if you don't pick them they serve a purpose.

A little more on seed-

I have used seed from other produce purchased from the grocery store.

Peppers for one; they're not actually ripe, because the pepper would be a partly or mostly dry husk when the seeds are harvested. The pepper seed would be going toward a tan color. However, in spite of this fact, I have purchased peppers and planted the seed straight into the pots and they grow.

Same for muskmelon (cantaloupe for most of you)- I don't mess with anything with a longer growing season.

Potatoes are sprayed to keep them from sprouting, but sometimes you can notice some sprouts trying to develop - those potatoes can be planted.

Carrots are a bi-annual, but you can plant a store carrot in the soil this year and it will make a stalk and flower and will give you more seed than you can possibly use. Just from ONE carrot.

Seed saving is far easier than most people imagine.