Greenhouse

After I had realized that growing tomatoes outdoors in Sweden is not the best idea I decided to buy a greenhouse. I did it next spring. There are many kinds of greenhouses - from very advanced and big ones to very simple models. It might be tempting to have a big glass greenhouse which can be used also as a romantic room in the garden but not every one can or should have one. Not me. First of all I wanted something small that would not take too much space in the garden. I did not need tones of tomatoes because they were supposed to be eaten only by my family (mostly by me who is a tomatmonster). I just wanted something practical where I would be able to squeeze minimum 10-15 plants. I bought a simple model with a window in the roof. It is ca 2 m long and 1,5 m wide. The greenhouse is made of polycarbonate plastic which makes it childproof. A glass greenhouse would maybe look better but it could be easily broken by playing children. Plastic solves this potential problem. My polycarbonate greenhouse has also a UV protection layer. It blocks ultraviolet rays that can damage plants but let the "good" sunlight in. The window does not open automatically like in advanced models but it is not a problem to open it manually. Frankly speaking I keep it open almost the whole summer. I close it occasionally when it rains cats and dogs. Last year some of my tomatoes grew so tall that some of them "looked out" of that window.

The greenhouse arrived in a box. First, my husband (who is big and strong) made a foundation of concrete to make it stable and not able to fly in the wind. Then we put all parts together. When it was ready my husband made a path of concrete plates. It was very important because a natural path on the ground could easily become muddy. The concrete path stays dry and clean.

It is finally spring and my tomatoes have lots of sun. They started growing faster after planting them in little pots filled with soil. I will transplant them to big pots in the greenhouse in the middle of May. The picture below was taken last summer.

My concrete path and tomatoes in pots

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.