Advancing health specialties from allergies to women’ s health through our physicians and partnerships.
Senior Connections September 2018
Totally tomatoes
BY CHRIS SCHLUETER
Tomatoes from the garden or farmers market are the best tasting around. If you don’ t have a garden, or want just a few fresh tomatoes, planting in containers is the answer.
Planting in containers can greatly reduce some tomato diseases, plus it makes for easy harvesting.
Follow these tips and you will soon be on your way to growing great tomatoes in pots:
First, you need to choose a container. Twenty-inch plastic pots and saucers seem to work the best. You can purchase pots that are colored and styled to look like old-fashioned terra-cotta.
At the end of each year, scrub them to remove most of the dirt, mold, and algae.
They are also lightweight, making them easier to move. If you are going to be moving pots around because of sun issues, use a dolly with wheels and set your pot on that.
Put a layer of river rock or similar material on your saucer, this will serve as drainage. The pots must be able to drain well, or your plants will get overwatered. Put a small square of plastic screening at the bottom of the pot to help with drainage. After a measurable rain, you will need to drain your rock-filled saucer so the plant does not sit in the water. You can dump it out
or siphon it with a kitchen baster.
The next crucial step is to get the right kind of soil for your pot. Use the best quality potting soil you can find. You can also add extra elements to this soil to encourage good growth and fruit.
At planting time, improve the potting mix, drawing on a balanced organic fertilizer already prepared and stored.
The recipe calls for 4 cups of soy meal and 2 cups of blood meal for nitrogen; 3 cups of bone meal for phosphorous; 2 cups of kelp meal and 4 cups of greensand for potassium. This homemade blend provides slow-release nutrition. Try to add 2 cups to each 40- quart bag of potting mix.
You could also use a good all-purpose fertilizer and feed this every week per instructions on the bottle, or get a slow-release fertilizer that you only add once.
Check out your local nursery for options, there are several out there.
You will find if you do add more to a potting soil, the plants will do much better.
Fill each pot with 6 to 8 inches of potting soil, and set a transplant at the bottom of the pot. As the tomatoes grow, trim the leaves from the stem and add more of the enriched soil mix until the pot is filled. This practice helps build root mass along the stem as
Chris Schlueter provides recipes using fresh tomatoes.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Advancing health specialties from allergies to women’ s health through our physicians and partnerships.
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Senior Connections September 2018
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