Our garden is a jungle

Our twelve tomato plants are flourishing and all of them have fruit. My two Big Zacs are healthy. It is too early to tell if any of the fruits will be big enough to win the competition. My biggest Big Zac fruit is about the size of a ping-pong ball.

I have another competition tomato in a tub of the Delicious variety. This variety is supposed to be a record holder, and the biggest one on record was over 7 pounds! However, mine is not doing very well. I have one fruit and lots of blossoms, but the leaves are starting to turn yellow already. I suspect it caught some kind of disease.

It looks like our two Tomato Success Kits that we purchased online will be producing lots of tomatoes for eating. We have harvested some already and a lot more are appearing on the vines. We didn't plan these to be for competition. We just wanted to see if the kits were as good as advertised and so far they have exceeded our expectations. They will be producing a lot more eating tomatoes (maybe 20% more) than the rest in our garden.

This year may not be a good season to grow tomatoes according to other competitors I have talked to. However, I heard Raf has a giant mutant tomato the size of half of his butt from what he told us. I can't wait to see it (his tomato, that is) at the weigh-off. Also, Linda says she has some good candidates for the weigh-off.

Upside Down Tomato Planter

By Dave Davisson

I've been curious about these upside down tomato kits for a long time, so I decided to finally try one out. I got online and found out how to make your own kit for cheap and had to do it. Total cost for this was less than $5 ( that's plant, pot, and soil), everything bought at ... gasp, Home Depot.


What you'll need:

- tomato plant (less than 10" tall)
- hanging pot planter (plastic, 14" if possible)
- soil (regular potting mix)
- weed cloth (8" square)
- drill w/ 3" circular cutout bit or a sharp knife
- hanging hook


Pretty up option:

- 2 or 3 herbs or flowers (4" pots)

Okay, first you are going to mark a 3" hole on the bottom of your hanging pot. If you have the drill and attachment, this is cake (knife ... be careful and take your time), simply make a 3" hole in the bottom of the planter (in the center would be best, lol). Next, in the center of your piece of weed cloth you are going to make a 3" X, and make the according cuts. Carefully thread your tomato plant through the
X 'til it is flush with the top of the soil (the weedcloth). Do the same thing again through the bottom of the planter, you may want to shift the weedcloth one direction or the other (it is to keep the soil from draining out the 3" bottom hole).
Now you can flip it over and fill with soil, in the top half you can also plant in herbs or flowers for added decoration. I planted basil and thyme on the top half.