comments to previous blogs

Three weeks with a cold! It just isn't right!!!

One of our members responded to the note on water. She says that during the winter she keeps two pails in her laundry room. The first she keeps full of loosely packed snow and the second she uses to drain water from the first. Then when she needs water, she takes it from the water pail which is then at room temperature. She says this process is just like adding rain water to her indoor plants which they really like.

She then went on to mention that she is about to start her tomato plants for both her home and cottage gardens. By starting them now, she feels that she gets sturdy, strong plants that produce a copious amount of tomatoes for her. When it comes time to plant them, she plants half the stem of the tomato in the ground which givers her quite a sturdy root ball.

In response to some of my questions, Marlene mentioned that she keeps the plants under grow lights in the basement. Pre-used metal shelving from a garage sale and end of season fluorescent lighting units have made it possible to start plants indoors. She mentioned using Gro lights which usually meand putting out a few more bucks for full spectrum fluorescent bulbs. You don't need to do this if you alternate cool white bulbs with warm white bulbs (one of each in a 2 bulb unit and 2 of each in a 4). This is cheaper than purchasing Gro lights, the bulbs last longer, and the units work as well as Gro lights.

She starts the tomatoes in terrarium style units, transplants as necessary, pinches them back if they get leggy, and moves them to a sunny window as needed. The pinching back is a technique that she has perfected for herself over years of study. She uses kitchen compost mostly and at the cottage she works falls (rotting apples), leaves, ashes from their fireplace and cottage kitchen waste into the garden bed. The result is always lots of tomatoes and larger than expected tomatoes, Any variety can be grown in this fashion.