Growing plants in the Rockies» Veggies

Its nearing the end

Chris — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:29:26 +0000

Well its been nice living here in the mountains but this week I found I lost my job, so its time to move on. The employment situation here for a pilot is just not happening at all, so we are moving back to Florida at the end of April.

This is the current situation here with our little greenhouse that could, its has survived the winter, only costing us about $20 extra per month to heat it to no lower than 55 F at night, and during the days it was around 65F …even when it was 10 F outside !

We had a nice lot of strawberries all winter, and lettuce and bok choi. Surprisingly the only herb to live the winter was the rosemary! As we are in the last month all thats left now is our peppers that are plants that are nearing a year old, and some really nice tomato plants. These tomatoes are the cold weather type from Canada you buy from Reimers Seeds, which I mentioned in a previous post.

The next version of this blog will be growing plants in the tropics! so check back in May for updates.

So here is the last post of it all, and what it looks like:

The Tomatoes are big	This is the cold weather Celery plants and the Rosemary living happily together	One of the many tomatoes on the plants
They are too big a plants to get a good pic

Update, prior to going to Australia

Chris — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:23:57 +0000

Spent the last 10 days in Australia, visiting family, so didnt get to complete the growing update before I left, so here it is.

These updates were taken on Oct 1 208, plantings of lettuce, winter tomatoes and celery, together with the standard toms, herbs and strawberry plants seem to be all ok, we will see how the upcoming colder weather treats them.

The little insulated greenhouse	Lettuce plants	More lettuce
New planter with heating for toms	Strawberry plants	Toms, still growing and going
Giant tree toms

Tomatoes, tomatoes keep on coming

Chris — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:15:24 +0000

Our first giant tree tomatoe plants have finally given birth to fruit, lots of big tomatoes, it only took 3 + months!. Our roma tomatoe plants have been a late suprise of the season, and our first tomatoe plant, a early riser tomatoe plant will be removed this week, as its life is over and its completed its season, here are some toms from it

A small giant tree tomato	Giant tree tomato fruit	Last of the early riser toms

Plants in general are still growing

Chris — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:36:29 +0000

While everyones outdoor gardens have now died from frost and cold weather the greenhouse still looks unchanged.

We have herbs still growing strong, and tomato plants, strawberry plants, bok choi, lettuce, a cauliflower, and bell peppers. There is also some winter zuchinni seeds that have sprouted.

Poor mans heating system on the punnets, rope light. Its waterproof and really warm	Herbs still a growing	Some of the tomatoes on the giant tree tomato plants
More giant tree tomato plant	The overview	Early bird and roma toms. The early bird to the right arent looking very happy.
This is some beefsteak and early riser toms	Bell peppers still growing happily

Plant updates, its been a while

Chris — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:29:46 +0000

2 weeks and a bit with little time off has meant not enough hours in the day to do the update to the site. Plus I was sick as a dog last week after getting food poisoning in a Shoneys Restaurant in Vicksburg Mississippi … avoid this restaurant at all costs if you are thru this little town!

So after having planted some seeds, the sudden and unexpected drop in temps seems to have killed them, so had to do some replanting. It was mainly the arctic king lettuce which didnt survive… either that or there is a bug eating them!

Sub arctic tomato plants

Lettuce seeds take 2

The summer nears an end

Chris — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:46:52 +0000

Well its the end of august, soon the leaves will turn and the snow will come!

We are still getting the odd strawberry, lots of herbs, peppers and tomatoes.

But there are no more lettuce plants for a while, which is a bummer. But soon we will have some more.

The Giant Tree Tomato plants are amazing, and giant, they are trying to put a hole in the roof. We also have tomatoes on them, they grow quick, real quick as you can see from the pics.

Bib lettuce seeds ready for the winter	The greenhouse	Toms still going
Romaine lettuce seed...poor little thing	The giant tree tomato plants	This is a giant tree tomato, tomato. 1 week old and look a the size of it.
Red peppers	Roma and early riser tomatoes still producing

A new growing season begins

Chris — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:51:11 +0000

Well as summer draws to a end slowly … and with the reminder that its going to end soon with the night time temps around 39 degrees last week!! Its time to look towards winter plants.

I found www.reimerseeds.com who like many others, had seeds for plants that tolerate cold temps.

We purchased for winter:
- Sub Arctic Tomato (fruits when in the 30 degrees temps!)
– Window box roma tomatoes
– Salad bush cucumbers ( another colder winter vegie that grows in small containers..apparently)
– Cold set tomato (another down to freezing temp type tomato)
– Tall Utah Celery (if it can grow in utah it can grow in a greenhouse here I think!)
– Artic king lettuce (the name says it all)

We have changed our planters for the winter, so we can put rope lights in the soil to keep it warm (yes rope lights are cheap and simple for heat!) We purchased some flat and long plastic storage containers from big lots for $8 each, painted the sides black and drilled holes in the bottom for the drainage.

The heater strung up and set to 60 degree for night time temps	This is where celery and arctic king lettuce has been planted for the winter	Some sub arctic tomato plants are planted here the new winter planter boxes.
This is the roma tom on the left and the early bird tom on the right, still fruiting.	Bok choi in the planter tubes along the walls, the soil was replaced after the lettuces finished in here.	Cucumbers in the planter bags for winter
Bib lettuce in the tubes starting from seed, these are great in salads	This is the poor eggplant after it was attacked by aphids, we seem to have rid the greenhouse of nearly all the bugs, and this plant is growing back slowly	Bell peppers are still growing and fruiting.
The herbs are loving it, in fact we have too many and have to freeze them weekly.	The head of the giant tree tomatoe which is now getting toms on it	The giant tree tomato plants and trying to break thru the roof.
The roma toms and early bird toms	These toms took the brunt of the aphid attack, although now aphid free I had to cut them back a bit to get them thru it all, but all it well now	Bell peppers a little stumpy but growing well
New seeds!

Plants and needs

Chris — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:55:59 +0000

Well with the impostors, the aphids taking their toll, and the fact that we have eaten all the lettuce it looks like I have gotten behind on the planting schedule, so the greenhouse within 1 week has gotten pretty empty looking.

The giant tree toms look like they will be able to not be attacked by the aphids as long as I keep up the fight and spray them constantly, some lettuces took a hit, but the herbs and strawberries are ok.

Roma toms and Early Bird toms seem to have missed the aphids

Giant tree toms are well... giant and have a small bit of aphid damage

Bell peppers are being harvested at the rate of 1 per 2 days which is pretty cool for a little greenhouse!

Harvest tally

Chris — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:36:54 +0000

The little greenhouse that could has let us have a fairly good amount of produce in its 2 mths of use:

- 4-5 lbs of tomatoes
- Mesculan for 10 large dinner salads
- Lettuce , about the same amount as 15 store bought salad bags (we harvest it as we need it, not always taking the whole head of lettuce)
- Onions -2 lbs
- Peppers – 2 red peppers so far (really sweet tasting too, totally different to store ones)
- Strawberries – hard to tell as we pick and eat most of the time, but around 1 lb of them I guess
- Herbs:
– Basil, Parsley and Thyme a lot… about enough to fill 10 x 1 qt ziplock bags of each!
– Cilantro, only about 2 x 1 qt ziplock bags so far

Giant Tree Tomato Plants ALIVE

Chris — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:45:00 +0000

Our giant tree tomato plants are HUGE !!!

I keep reading reviews about these plants with people saying the seeds area croc of shit, and dont grow, but they do, follow the instructions, use logic and wait! The grow, they are just slow to start (8 weeks to sprout in our case)

But we have 2 trees 6 feet high and growing with little fruit already on them and more to come!

So to all the negative people , go and try growing something else, these just aint for you obviouslyt.

We got our seeds from gardnerschoice.com, and in no way did we get any kick back or are we affiliated with the owners of that company. ( but if you are ready how about some free seeds for winter toms??)

Giant toms growing in buckets inside the greenhouse

Sorry its blurry but this is the 2 giant tomato trees we have