Just a stone's throw from my house (ok, perhaps a 5 minute walk), there is a gorgeous garden tucked behind a tall evergreen hedge. The property is about an acre in size and is filled with a lovely assortment of exotic and native perennials, bulbs, trees and shrubs - as well as a few veggie patches! Faye is a very accomplished gardener who has a flair for pairing plants (although she would modestly deny this).. We popped by yesterday to check the progress of the garden, which is at its peak in May-June and here are a few of the hundreds of photos that I took..
Niki, quick question about my tomato plants. I’m a novice in the world of indoor horticulture, a virgin you might say when it comes to window crops. The weekend of the ideal home show I planted 38 tomato seeds in their own little pots and put them in a sunny spot on the south side of my house. Amazingly, I had 100% germination – half were sungold and the other half were sweet baby girl. They are 4-5 inches tall right now, and my concern is, will the stocks be strong enough to support the tops? Should this be a concern?...norm (Bedford NS)
ReplyDeleteHi Norm.. great job! You will LOVE the sungold tomatoes.. so sweet! Although a grow light (I use florescent shop lights that are 48-inches long) will help keep the plants stockier, your seedlings should be fine. Keep them from touching the window itself - especially on very sunny days, or the leaves could be burned. At this point, my seedlings are about 4 to 6-inches tall and I have been putting them out on my shaded front deck during the day and bringing them inside at night.. Once night temps are above 8 C or so, I'll leave them out all night, just bringing them in when a cool night or frost threatens.. After about a few days on the shaded deck, I'll give them more sunlight until they're ready for full, bright sun on my back deck and they'll stay there until it's time to transplant.
ReplyDeleteYou might find that you'll need to pot them up a size if they start to outgrow their current containers..
When you plant them in the garden, bury the stem of the plant so that only the top 6 or so inches of the foliage is visible - this means that I usually put about 75% of the plant under the ground. This will help prevent it from drying out and make it much more drought tolerant. So, if your plants are a bit leggy when it's time to put them in the garden, no worries, as the leggy stems will be mostly underground!
I hope this helps!
Niki
aloha,
ReplyDeletewhat a beautiful garden, thanks for taking us on a tour today of this place, love the seated pot sculpture :)
thanks for sharing that garden, love the pot person
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