How to Stake Tomatoes

...d around the Homegrown Evolution compound is simple and lazy. We plant our tomatoes and then surround them with rolled up concrete reinforcing wire. Normally used to reinforce concrete slabs, reinforcing wire comes in 3 1/2′ by 7′ sections. We use a circular saw with a metal blade on it to cut off the bottom rung, so as to leave spiky wires with which to stick the reinforcing wire tubes into the ground, but this is not absolutely necessary. Once i...

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Feral Tomatoes on the Bayou

...just next to a concrete plant and under a bridge we stumbled on some feral tomatoes. We theorized that some fast food meal pitched in the gutter found it’s way into this meandering, heavily industrialized waterway. The tomatoes separated from the cheeseburger, floated to the surface of the water and were deposited on the muddy banks of the bayou. Houston’s hot and humid climate sprouted the seeds and the result is the plant below. Back with more f...

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Tomato Grafting Fail

...ing. A better project, for our climate, would be to figure out how to grow tomatoes with little or no supplemental water. The feral tomatoes on the side of my mom’s house prove this is possible. For years, we also used to have volunteer cherry tomatoes along a wall now dominated by a massive Vitus californica vine. Next year I’m going to keep things simple, choose a drought tolerant tomato from Native Seed Search and plant it directly in the groun...

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How’s that Tomato Grafting Project Going?

...ssity. We haven’t had the sort of soil problems that might require grafted tomatoes but I thought it would be fun to try. To graft tomatoes you grow a hardy root stock (I chose Maxifort) and the tomatoes you want to graft them on to. You then make the graft and secure it with a grafting clip. For the grafting process I used the directions in the following video from Cornell University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08YfqCpL3po&index=66&list=FLsd...

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Apartment Parking Lot Gardening in East Hollywood

...satisfaction in growing your own veggies and the taste is exceptional. My tomatoes have a flavor that is incomparable to even the most expensive organic tomatoes you can buy, including your local farmer’s market. My goal of teaching my granddaughter some gardening basics while she is growing up has been accomplished and she will have some good childhood memories of the times spent with grandpa growing and eating veggies, I know there are many peo...

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