Tomato Experiment

Early in the season I had noticed that the tomatoes which I had grown from seed had very wobbly / unstable stems. I figured this was due to having started the tomatoes indoors with little air movement. So, in July I started a second batch of tomatoes from seed outside. I was not expecting much from these and planted the seeds in little soil. Right now, 6 weeks later, I have four good plants that have come out of this with seven green hanging fruit. We are excited to try these late season yellow pear tomatoes.

Yellow Pear Tomatoes 9/1/12

Yellow Pear Tomatoes 9/1/12

Yellow Pear Tomato Seeds

 On another note, this week I was very surprised to see that my bonsai raspberry plant had started producing raspberries for the very first time ever!!!! This will also be a late harvest but boy are they delicious.

Bonsai Raspberry Plant 9/1/12

Seedlings & Cleaning up

The weather was fantastic today and I used it as an opportunity to get out onto the balcony and clean up the mess from last year. I pulled and threw out all of the old tomato plants. I cut away all of the dead alpine strawberry plants to allow the new plants to get bigger. I was pleasantly surprised that so much growth on these plants has taken place. The raspberry bush desperately needed to be cut and I could feel how flimsy the old dried branches were as I cut them off. The blueberry bush has little buds already that will turn into leaves eventually.

Indoors, both the peony's and cosmos are well under way. The romaine lettuce seedlings have sprung up and so have some of the herb seedlings. At yesterday's flower & garden show I bought a bonsai orange tree and noted today that the tree has some time oranges already.

Cosmo, Peony, and Romaine Seedlings

Alpine Strawberries

Blueberry Bush

Bonsai Orange Tree

Garden Center and More



Pansy's



I went to Mahoney' Garden Center in Winchester, MA yesterday and it's the most wonderful place. I was very impressed by their huge green house and the happy seedlings and plants inside. Everything looked so healthy, especially compared to the Home Depot's and Lowe's stores. They even stocked botanical interest seeds, which right now is my favorite brand. They had a big selection of happy pansy's and I gladly bought some orange & purple ones. I think these are just sooo pretty!

Blueberry & Raspberry

I had been considering growing raspberries, but did not want to mail order a plant in fear of getting a weak one. So I decided to purchase one at the garden center and also got a blueberry bush. These both look very healthy and should bear fruit this summer. I was tempted to buy alpine strawberry seedlings because I have not seen much growth on my own. Meanwhile the strawberry seedlings at Mahoney's already had little berries. I decided to hold off on these and give my own a chance.

Since my last post, I figured out that my seedlings were not getting enough light so I put them under a strong white light source. Sure enough, I am now starting to see the beggining of my true-leaves. Though, I am still worried about them getting enough light. Hopefully they will make it until they can be transplanted onto my patio.