The little plastic tag stated that the tomato growing in the pot was a Red Beefsteak tomato. The tag also stated that this was a heirloom variety tomato. Standing there in the outdoor garden isle of my local Home Depot, I made the decision to take one home, even though doing so violated my normal procedure of starting most all my veggies from seed. Hey, but rules are made to be broken! I bought just one plant that day and then true to my word, the rest of my purchases were for seed.
As you can see in the picture, this was one healthy looking plant! The first thing I did when I go home was to transplant it into a larger plastic pot making sure to use Miracle Gro Potting Mix as filler. This stuff has a timed release fertilizer that’s good for up to six months. The growing season for this tomato is a long 85 days. So, with any luck, I’ll be enjoying some fruit off this plant by late July. I think that this particular variety is also indeterminate which means that once it starts producing, it should continue to do so right on until the first frost. I plan to keep this plant in a pot on my balcony so as to avoid the local deer which just love to eat them down to the ground. The only problem I’ve had in the past was in keeping the plant watered. (Tomato plants, as a rule, transpire like crazy and in so doing need lots and lots of water). I plan to solve this problem by making sure to relocate the plant into progressively larger pots (i.e. larger soil mass) as it grows. By the time it fruits, I expect to be using a ten gallon container at the very least.
It should be fun watching the little guy grow as the spring moves on into summer. I’ll try and post an update or two as needed.
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