OOPS, the camera setting was on

B&W from this past weekend, but here is a sneek peek at some really fun, and different for growing your vegetable plants in next spring. We hope to have some of these at the Wichita Garden Show nest March, but you can watch the progress here.

January 27, 2010

Well the straw bale project has not gone as planned. First off, the bales are in an unheated greenhouse, and I think they will start to break down faster in a warmer area. The greenhouse is now being filled with perennials for this seasons sales and the bales are going outside, where it will be even colder. As the spring season warms, I think the straw bale project will progress, we'll see.

BUT, Jeremy found these grow bags in jumbo sizes which will work really nice for an affordable, reusable, planting area. This is a 100 gal container planted in Square Foot Garden soil recipe, more on that in a later post. In the center is a 'Cherokee Purple' tomato and planted around is 9 herb plants. Our plan is to have this planter at the Wichita Garden Show the first weekend of March.

God's Artwork

I just thought you would like to see my backyard pond waterfall. I leave the pump on 24/7/365. Today, with the temps in the teens, made a great ice falls.

It's Tomato Time at Johnson's

I don't know if I have ever seen greenhouse tomatoes as nice as these. A local greenhouse grower had some extra space in his production greenhouse that he was heating and decided to try some hydroponic tomatoes. I think one of the things that make these tomatoes special is that he grew garden varitety tomatoes, not hydroponic varieties. I would guess he had some seed left over from his spring bedding plant crop and grew what he had. We have all eaten grocery store, or reataurant tomatoes that are pale red at best. These things have flavor! They are harvested at their peak, not weeks early and let ripen in a box.

These plants have also been grown without the use of pesticides. I don't know for sure, but many organic growers use preditory insects in their greenhouses for insect control.

We will have these for sale this week, and hopefully for the next several weeks, if supply holds out. Avoid getting the tomatoes grown across the border and #1, help a local grower and #2, enjoy the best tasting tomatoes you can get in December.