Potting up the Tomatoes

So it has been a very long time since my update, due to foreign travels and then a week spending all the money buying all the whisky!

When I got back I had some pretty bad news in that the plants in the heated propagator have all died (I think I may have saved on Ghost Chilli) but still not a good thing; everything else however is fine.

This update I am not going to post pictures of dead plants because it'll depress me. Instead I had to pot up the Tomatoes in the self watering planters into slightly larger ones and so you are lucky to be treated to these...

As you can see the compost in this is completely full of roots now...

The roots have grown so far they have come through the bottom of the planter and grown down the wick into the reservoir.

I have these larger water bottles from a camping trip which I am going to convert into a self watering planter.

The water bottle, cut in half and positioned with the reservoir at the bottom.

Yes, that is an old pair of my boxer shorts and yes there is a good reason for this picture....

.... in the absence of any spare shoe laces, and not wanting to remove the ones from the shoes I am currently wearing, I decided to use these boxers as the wick; here I have cut along the waist band and then down in an L shape to make the wick.

The long end is then threaded through a hole in the water bottle lid with the waste band end still protruding where it will go into the bottle.

The lid tightened back up onto the bottle with the wick in place.

Starting to add moist compost to the planter, with the wick pulled through it to assist in transporting water throughout.

The Tomato plant transplanted into its new larger home. I have had to gaffer tape the stake so it didn't keep falling over, something which I didn't consider prior to the move.

Very exciting news: I have one Tomato developing on the plant, with a load of other flowers looking promising.

So there you are, Tomato update done.

While I was outside doing the re-potting I took some pictures of progress amongst the outdoor plants.

The Potato plants have shot up since I last looked; they need earthing up but are way out of the bags already...

The Lettuce plants are starting to look like lettuce plants, but are still small. I hope they start to grow a bit faster; I think maybe this is because I haven't watered them at all... I did water them after this picture was taken though.

The Onion plants are also looking ok but still quite small. I may pull one of these soon just to see what is happening underneath the soil *impatient*

The Broccoli is probably overcrowded now as it has continued to have the best growth. I may have failed slightly with this because I have ignored it and, apparently, they like good regularly watering. Oh well.

The shop bought Chives are looking ok; they haven't died at least.

The original shop bought Coriander is starting to look established; if I can resist eating it then this may become a very good bush.

Of all the Foxglove only one seems to have survived but it is looking ok.

So there you are: Tomato potting up, and some good progress.

It'll not be as long til my next update as I'm now back and not planning on jetting off round the world too many more times.

Keep growing.

The Self Watering Planters

As I was going around this morning doing my normal morning watering routine I spotted something very exciting indeed.

The Gardeners Delight tomatoes, which have up until now shown absolutely no sign whatsoever of ever germinating, has suddenly got one seedling!

I planted two, and the other one is still showing nothing, but I am very excited about this.

It really is an excellent advert for the efficacy of the Self Watering Planter that I am using; because the Moneymaker Tomatoes had started so many weeks previously I have ignored the two containing the non-responsive Gardeners Delight but, because they are self watering, the compost remained moist and now I have a little plant to make me so happy.

The tiny Gardeners Delight Tomato seedling taken this morning, to much celebration.

The obvious success this demonstrates gave me the inspiration to do a blog post study of one of the Self Watering Planters (actually the one which contains the Moneymaker which has been on the floor twice).

So here you can see how, two months in, my Self Watering Planters are looking.

As I was warned by my mate, there is quite a lot of algae developed in the bottom of the planter; I'm using tap water and this is not so thickly coated that it isn't easy to clean if you want to.

This particular planter is stood in a warm area of the house, which receives regular direct sunlight. You can see that the water in the bottom has started to evaporate however, as the reservoir is sealed, the water condenses on the sides and collects once again; I have only had to refill these once in two months.

You can see the root system of the Tomato plant here, as the plant fills all the space available to it. There is also some green algae in the compost but this does not seem to be causing any problems to the plant. I am presuming this is down to the fact the wick keeps the soil very moist at all times.

Finally, as I move up the planter, this is the incredibly healthy plant which is growing in this 2 litre bottle.It is amazing to me how well this has grown.

And this is the full height of the plant in it's planter.

So there you are; I cannot recommend this homemade Self Watering Planter highly enough; it recycles waste and allows you to grow amazing plants with minimal effort - ticks all the boxes for me :)

Cheers for reading...