Late Summer In My Greenhouse

It´s been a long time since my last post. I was very busy not only with my tomatoes but also with other plants that I have in my garden. It is almost the end of summer but it is still very warm and sunny. Nights are cold though and tomatoes do not have perfect conditions to grow and ripen anymore but they still look good;) 

This summer was exceptionally warm and sunny and I needed to water my tomatoes quite often. The conditions were perfect for my plants but not everything turned out so perfect... I used a new fertilizer which was especially dedicated to feed tomatoes. Unfortunately, it was not as good as I expected. Actually much worse... After several weeks of dosing it my tomatoes started having symptoms of lack of various elements or overdosing some of them on their leaves. Luckily fruits did not seem to be affected. It is difficult to guess what is your plant problem. The best solution would be to analyse the soil and add what is missing but that was too complicated for me -after all I am not a professional gardener and I do not have ambition to be one;) I wanted to fix it in some simple way. First, I stopped using the new fertilizer. It helped. After some weeks on a "diet" I gave them the old fertilizer and it turned out to be a good decision because my tomatoes went back to norm and the new leaves looked good. Of course both - the old and the new fertilizer are ecologic. 

Now I just wait till the end of season. I pick ripened tomatoes and get rid of old plants.

I weight every fruit from every plant and keep a record of this information. I also note which ones are tasty. After picking the last tomato of this season I will compare them to see which sorts were most productive and tasted the best. This should help me to plan which sorts to pick for the next year. I will describe them in this blog before the next year.

And here are some pictures from this season:

mixed sorts of my tomatoes

A peculiar tomato sort called "reise tomato"

The greenhouse in July

Transplanting Tomatoes To Larger Pots

My little tomatoes did not feel comfortable in their tiny cubes. They developed long roots but their growth stopped. It was high time to transplant them to bigger pots. I remember that my last year´s plants  were bigger at the same age. I will rather use some sawing soil mix next time than propagation cubes. 

I transplanted my plants yesterday evening when it was only 2 °C degrees (35,6 F) so much too cold to keep my tomatoes outside. I did not want to conduct the whole procedure inside so first I prepared pots outside. I started with putting labels with number on the pots. The numbers correspond with the tomatoes sorts I planted. Before sawing my tomatoes I had prepared a numbered list of their sorts. When they get fruits I will know which is which. After putting the numbers labels on the pots I filled them with a special planting soil mix. It contained a natural fertilizer. I did not prepare the mix myself but bought it ready in my gardener´s store. When my pots were ready then I took the first tomato plant outside and planted it quickly before it got too cold. I had to be very careful because their roots were long I did not want to damage them too much as well as I had to make sure that the roots ends are in the right position and go down in the soil. Then I put the ready tomato pot back inside and placed it on a plastic tray. Every pot has a hole in the bottom to remove excess water from it. Therefore I needed the tray. I used it instead of many regular pot plates. I repeated this procedure with every tomato. Now I have 24 pots on 3 trays. After transplanting tomatoes to the new pots I carried them to the upstairs hall where they have very good conditions thanks to roof windows that let lots of the sunlight in. Tomatoes really need it. At the end I watered them with mild temperature water. They survived the whole process and went to sleep because it became dark:) Plants don´t like to be transplanted in a sunny hot weather because it makes them tired. They need some time to regenerate. I planted my tomatoes in the evening so the had the whole night to rest:) 

Today they look OK. I hope they feel good and will start growing fast. I plan to transplant them to very big pots around May, 15th.   

Plant ready to go to the new pot

My tomatoes today. Still alive;)

Why I Run This Blog

In my first post I want to present my experience with growing tomatoes. I don´t pretend to be a professional - it´s just my passion and try to do my best to get great tomatoes from seeds. Every year I learn something new about it and my blog is the place where I write what I do and what effects it gives.

I have always loved taste of real homegrown tomatoes. My grandma Helena used to have a greenhouse and had the best tomatoes in the world. It is almost impossible to find really tasty tomatoes in stores. Therefore, I decided to grow my own plants. My first cultivation took place 3 years ago. I decided to check if it was possible to grow tomatoes in Sweden. Poland and my region of Sweden (hardiness zone 6) have more less the same climate so it seems possible to succeed. Though, I was a little crazy planting my tomatoes in the ground outside instead of keeping them in a greenhouse. Summer in Sweden is unpredictable - the weather changes several times a day. It rains quite often. Tomatoes don't like to be wet. Luckily, it was not the worst summer so my plants grew well. Problems started when they were still green in September. I had to pick them in this stage and keep them on windowsills. Eventually, they became red but then I discovered that they tasted awful - I turned out that I had used too much fertilizer (natural) which affected their taste. All my tomatoes landed on the compost pile but I did not give up...

Thanks to this experience and many professional publications I have learnt a lot about tomatoes. I also  get advice from my mother in law who successfully grows tomatoes in the northern Sweden (Leksand). Last two years I succeeded with my plants and I keep growing them. I test and introduce new solutions for watering, fighting pests and other potential problems that I face. I also check different sorts of tomatoes every year. I have been running a paper tomatoes cultivation diary with information about every tomato sort I have had - if it was tasty, when fruits were ready to pick, how much it weighted and how many tomatoes I got from one plant. Now, I decided to run this blog instead of the paper diary.