This is how Peter (Grandpa Peter, Pete, Daddy) grew prize-winning tomatoes!
1. Start saving beer cans, and if you don't drink beer, ask all your friends to save them for you. (No kidding! This is the beginning of success!)
2. When the winter seems as if it will never end, start removing the bottoms of the beer cans with a can opener, and slip that bottom piece into the bottom of the can (which is actually the top of the can, the side with the flip top removed . . .The can now will have a double lid at its base, with a hole for drainage at the very bottom.)
3. Order Burpee's seed catalogue.
4. Order Big Boy tomato seeds as soon as is possible.
4a. As you will learn from the comments below, Grandpa Peter, acc. to Marash Girl's brother, first planted the seeds in a small seed starter; Marash Girl does not remember that; it may have been a later rendition of this planting ritual!
5. Sterilize soil from your compost pile (and Grandpa Peter had a big one) in your oven, causing the house to reek! (These days folks would probably buy potting soil from the local garden supply house.)
6. Leaving beer can tops in bottom of beer can, fill cans with sterilized soil, placing seeds in can in February in sunroom (his sunroom faced to the east), placing cans in a tray so that the drainage will not damage the floor of your sunroom!
7. Keep soil slightly moist until tomato plant sprouts; then water only when plant is beginning to wilt; that, explained Grandpa Peter, will make the plants strong. Let plants grow gangly.
8. Just before planting when danger of frost has past (usually May 15), withhold water from plants so that plants become droopy and pliable.
9. On May 15, water plants just before removing from beer, preparing plants to plant in the garden (after, of course, you have tilled the soil in the garden.)
10. Not until you are in the garden, (hopefully your garden will have rich soil, soil from years of composting!) and your hole is dug only 1 inch deep and about 5 inches long, push tomato plant out of beer can using screwdriver to push through hole at base of beer can. Do so gently, and low to the ground so that the plant does not "plop" out.
11. Carefully place tomato plant and roots sideways, approx. 1 inch below the soil, leaving about 2 to three inches of plant above the ground. (Peter discovered that tomatoes root ONLY 1 inch below the surface of the soil; in order to establish a strong root system, Peter developed the "sideways" planting method for his tomatoes.) You may prop them with sticks and use strips torn from old white cotton shirts -- Grandpa Peter's father Moses had many a ball of those strips around the house for use in the garden -- Peter continued the tradition!
12. Pat the soil over the planted seedling; water gently, and keep moist until plant becomes sturdy.
13. When plant has established itself, only water when plant begins to droop, as that will make for a stronger plant (see above).
14. If you're lucky, you'll have the most delicious tomatoes in town!
1. dad planted the seeds in a tiny planter, when they had grown two inches he replanted them in a beer can.
ReplyDelete2. we had a neighbor, mr. mancini, a man of spare build and with the appearance of the ancient of days at the age of 40 and at the age of 60. he grew older but he always looked the same. unbeknownst to me, there was a cultural competition in italy of who raises the first ripe tomato. mr. mancini beat us every year, until dad, finally figured out how to gain an extra two weeks of growing season. dad encircled the garden with a translucent plastic, @30 inches high, that acted as a windbreak as well to trap the heat of the garden, at the margin. that margin was enough to beat mr. mancini, from then on. mr. mancini was a kindly man who struggled with english and could be comprehended only when he said, 'you must understand'. those are the only words we ever did understand him to say.
3. there was also a barrel filled with chicken and horse manure, with a hose dangling just above the surface. when dad wanted to feed the garden, the hose would turn on, and the nutrients contained in the barrel would seep into the garden. this is when i learned the old country saying not to stir the sh...t if you did not want to smell the sh...t.
See blog post for Thursday, May 15 to learn the origin of that expression, "Not to stir the sh...t!"
DeleteWonderful method - I look forward to trying it next year - I wonder if soda pop cans would work?
ReplyDeleteSoda pop cans? Of course! But my father only used beer cans! Wonder why? Well, for one reason, I think, in those days, folks didn't drink soda pop from a can!
ReplyDelete