It all begins in the spring of 2010, when a young lady decided to grow a garden. She had just bought her little suburb house, and low and behold, the backyard had a raised garden bed in it! She was very excited, as she had gardened as a little child but was unable to garden for many years. So, she made her way to the local nursery. Being slightly naive, she bought 18 tomato plants, even though she had never grown tomatoes before. Skipping over all the long hard work of laying on the couch, never weeding or feeding her garden, the young lady ended up with a small harvest due to blight and blossom end rot.
As obvious as it is, this young lady was I. Yes, I got over zealous my first year gardening, bought way too many tomato plants with no knowledge of how to care for them. As silly was it was, it was also one of the best teaching tools I could have ever had. The disappointment of a small harvest and the realization of the potential harvest made me realize that I actually needed to know something about gardening in order to garden. Thanks to the wonders of Google, I spent my winter researching and reading on gardening. I've come a long way when it comes to growing tomatoes. I'm still learning though. My tomatoes right now are large and heavy, super healthy but I'm experiencing blossom drop. For weeks I have been fretting over this, thinking I've been doing something wrong. Turns out, I'm having blossom drop because I've done everything right. The tomatoes already fruited on the plant are causing the blossom drop, as the plant decides that energy should be put into the already established fruit rather than trying to grow new ones. I'm hoping that the plant will try and blossom after I've harvested the present tomatoes. The biggest lessons I have learned though from tomato gardening; Calcium is your best friend!
Happy Homesteading!!
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