Geoff Fox: My Permanent Record
Back when I was in school teachers would always scare me with stories of how my exploits would end up in my permanent record. I believe this is it! – Geoff Fox
It looks like a cherry tomato, but it’s supposed to be full size.
This plant is growing in a pot. Maybe I should thin things out a little to concentrate the growth? I don’t know. I’ve never had to do that before.
I just ate my first tomato of the season. It’s still April. I usually don’t plant until Memorial Day. Oh, California!
Here’s the problem. It looks like a cherry tomato, but it’s supposed to be full size.
This plant is growing in a pot. Maybe I should thin things out a little to concentrate the growth? I don’t know. I’ve never had to do that before.
The taste was good, though a little pulpy. Not as many seeds as I expected.
I’ll keep observing. Tomatoes are worth it.
I’m a tomato growing guy! Over the years I’ve raised them at home and work.
Does raising tomatoes at work where I was paid make me a farmer? Sure. Why not?
Now that we’re in the land of perpetual sunshine I’ve got a single tomato plant in a pot on our patio. Growing space is limited. One is enough.
I cheated. The pot, with a plastic tomato cage above, came from Home Depot already in bloom. So far, it has survived my questionable care.
Our patio has limited sunshine. That’s good for people, but not optimum for tomatoes. They can’t get enough sunlight.
So far the impact has been minimal. Maybe it’s that sunshine is stronger in SoCal than Connecticut. Because of our more southerly latitude the Sun is higher in the sky.
I certainly started earlier. Back in the Northeast I never planted until Memorial Day. These bad boys are close to a month in.
I had been watering the tomatoes by hand. Today I installed irrigation.
We have a tiny sprinkler system for our flowers and bushes. I tapped into that, adding ‘dribblers’ for the tomatoes and a few other plants in pots.
The dribblers are rated one gallon per hour. The system runs two minutes every other day. That’s 4.27 ounces of water three or four times a week.
Is it enough? I’ll let you know.
In Connecticut tomato season ran from late July into October. It will be longer here. And no killing frost!
For the last few weeks our tiny plot has been ablaze with spring color. The calendar says March but our plants say April, maybe May.
Does that mean it’s tomato time? Home Depot’s got plants. Why not try?
I headed to the garden center. My plan was buy a plant, a pot, some soil and get to work.
And then I spied it.
I picked up a plant already over a foot tall, with flowers, in a pot with an attached tomato cage!
This is cheating, right?
No planting. No weeding. No getting my hands dirty. It will have to be hand watered. That’s my only real contribution.
If things go according to plan there should be fruit to harvest in a little over two months. I can’t wait.
Will they taste as good without all the grunt work? I’ll let you know.
Last summer and again this year I’ve worked my mini-garden on the south side of the Hartford Courant building. I grow a lot of different crops and flowers. They’re nice, but only one plant counts for me.
I love tomatoes!
Right after I started working at FoxCT I made a suggestion to my boss. Wouldn’t a gardening segment be nice?
For many people gardening is a summertime passion. It’s often passed down from generation-to-generation. There’s a lot of interest, but it’s good TV in the abstract.
She said yes!
Last summer and again this year I’ve worked my mini-garden on the south side of the Hartford Courant building. I grow a lot of different crops and flowers. They’re nice, but only one plant counts for me.
I love tomatoes!
My tomatoes are always over-planted! This year my guardian angels, Marlene and Sarah from the UCONN Master Gardener program, implored me to rip out half my tomato plants to give everything a little more room to thrive.
It was like asking a parent to choose a favorite child! I didn’t want to do it. I’m not enough of an optimist to cut back.
As it turns out Marlene and Sarah were right. The tomatoes are growing now as if they’re nuclear powered! I will have more tomatoes than even I can devour.
Tonight I went to fetch my first picking. Not much yet. There was just enough to fill a pint container (after I’d munched the overflow) with pretty cherry tomatoes.
I walked the tomatoes around the newsroom offering them up as if they were some sort of hors d’oeuvres. They were still warm from the Sun and very sweet. The response was positive.
That’s the payoff. Nothing else really counts. Tomatoes are first, everything else is a distant second.