Project Tomato

Well the tomato project is going pretty good. The tomatoes had been doing really well in their biodome – the lid. The pictures on the biodome website are very misleading or I did not do it correctly. On Friday, the tomatoes kind of started to fall over so I knew it was time to transplant them. I had been collecting 2-liter and 3-liter bottles: two 3-liter and two 2-liters. It will be interesting to see how the sets of bottles affect progress and quality of plants. My original plan was to glue the tops back on but leave a small hole for watering. However, the plants are bigger than I assumed and the top will probably hinder growth. I have thought about using them later as a kind of support but the plants will probably be needing another transplant to an even larger container by then.














Altered Bottles and Garden soil- fairly cheap at Wal-Mart. (oh no, I went to Wal-Mart.)



Well, I filled all three bottles with some soil. I had clipped off the baby leaves a couple of days prior, and I planted the tomatoes deep so that the stems will grow roots and support the tomatoes better. I think that I could have planted them a bit deeper, but I wanted room for the roots to grow.


















Close up of the tomato plants



The final setup: We have a bathroom upstairs in the loft that we don’t use very much so I switched out the lights with garden bulbs. I used a probe thermometer back when I used a heating pad to assist the germination stage, and I used it just to check the temp. But I don’t know how I would use temp. information now. The blue green powder is some fertilizer that came with the biodome, but I can't tell if it does any good. The problem that I have had in the past was the amount of water and the frequency of watering. This first time, I watered with a ½ cup of lukewarm water and a 3-liter bottle cap of the fertilizer water. I have recorded the date and the amount, but I have to figure out when to water them again. Not that many people read this blog, if any, but if you have any gardening experience and run across this, please give me your thoughts/advice. This watering was done on Saturday, and on Sunday you could see the plants perk up a little bit and straighten out.