Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Aerogarden Tomato

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. It was also my birthday this past weekend, so it was nice to have an extra day off. The weather was beautifully sunny, which was much appreciated, but temperatures in the upper 80s with very high humidity made for a very sweaty weekend.

The poor outdoor plants were torn. The tomatoes are taking off and loving this hot weather, but the kale and chard are not happy campers. We actually harvested some of the kale (photos to come) and had it for dinner with our cookout last night. So good!

But today's post is about an indoor plant - my Aerogarden tomatoes.

There's nothing like a homegrown tomato and even these Aerogarden ones taste delicious, but I think the plant may be reaching the end of its life. I'm hesitant to end it, but J wants to rip the whole thing out and get started on something new. His bigger Aerogarden currently has some jalapeno peppers in it, so I think he wants to get the golden cherries going in mine to make some salsa.

You can see that the growth on it is getting a little straggly and it hasn't grown much in a few weeks. The leaves at the bottom are brown and dead, they probably should be snipped.

This photo is from about a week ago. Those tomatoes were great on salads, but the green ones already turned and we had those this past weekend.
I think tomatoes are just so pretty!
So there's the photographic ode to the Aerogarden tomatoes. Something tells me J's going to get his way pretty soon and I'll be washing out an Aerogarden this week. I'm interested to see how the root system looks!

5 comments:

  1. Wow that sucker really grew. I don't have the extended light for mine. Was wondering how the tomatoes would do in them.

    I have basil, thyme and parsley growing in mine right now but yesterday one of the lights went out so need to get a new light. Also raised the light today and the pump has quit working. I have a new pump for it but I don't think there is anyway of replacing it without tearing it down which I hate to do. Not sure if the plants will live with just the roots being in water and no circulation.

    I can imagine tearing down one with tomato roots in it. It is hard enough with just the herbs.

    Did you use their seed for the tomatoes or some of your own?

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  2. Tomatoes are definitely pretty!! Your tomato plant is beautiful! Happy Birthday! :)

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  3. i really like that second to last photo of the tomatoes! is there any way you could take the plant out, pot it and grow it outside? even if you can't use the original roots, one thing you could try is to trim off large parts of the stem (cleanly, with a knife) and place them like cut flowers in a vase full of liquid kelp/water solution, then put the vase near a window. submerge at least 4-5 inches of stem (remove leaves if you have to) and the stems will sprout roots all along where they're submerged.

    once the roots appear you can plant them and harden them off like normal tomato seedlings. you can do that with any tomato, although if this particular one is a determinate it probably won't grow much longer no matter what.

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  4. I believe if it is the seed from Aerogarden it is a determinate. For some reason my pump has decided to work again. Have no idea what is with that.

    Forgot to say Happy Birthday this morning.

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  5. I did use the Aerogarden seeds since it came with the unit.

    I'd like to try the cutting method, but I have nowhere else to put more plants!

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