update on tobacco plants and more

Hello everyone! It’s been a while since I posted on word press blog so thought I would bring you up to speed! The demo tobacco plants in containers are finally taking off and getting some height! I’ve been battling slugs like crazy with containers of cheap beer and it works! I am sure the store clerk didn’t quite believe me when I bought chips and beer and told him that the chips were for me and the beer for the slugs! LOL

last year when the topiary was first planted

I also am including a recent snapshot of my corgi topiary, affectionately renames my “Tobiary” as he name after my real life corgi, Toby. The white bacopa has been amazing on this statue and brings folks to a dead halt when they see it! 

Well, that’s all for now from the Pacific Northwest and my front porch. Have a great summer!

Grow your own Tobacco plants from seeds

Tobacco plants in Oregon

Tobacco growing (Nicotiana) is not just for smokers. Growing tobacco plant seeds is still enjoyed by home growers and those with an interest in specialty varieties. Some varieties are grown specifically for their beauty and wonderful fragrances. One tobacco variety that comes to mind, is Nicotiana Sylvestries, also know by Argentina Tobacco in South America and called Woodland Tobacco in North America! Beautiful long white trumpet flowers with a heavenly jasmine-like scent as evening approaches.

Tobacco is a sub-tropical plant so requires four full months of growth from seed to harvest without frosty nights. Generally for our northern growers and in Europe, this is accomplished by germinating seeds in pots and growing indoors in greenhouses for four to six weeks prior to planting outdoors. This will give the gardener plants that are four to six inches tall and ready to take on the great outdoors! Tobacco plants do require watering and a good nitrogen based fertilizer in the garden setting in order to get the best production for quality home grown tobacco.

Once America’s biggest trade items, tobacco and tobacco plant seeds have lost their glorified reputation. But America’s smokers will not be deterred by threats and higher “sin” taxes. Many are now turning to their home garden or plot of land and growing their own. Each plant when harvested is about 80% water, so when fully dried and cured produces about four-five ounces of product. I know that doesn’t sounds like not much, but it only takes ½ pound of pure home premium tobacco to make one carton of cigarettes, or approximately two to three plants. Grow forty plants and you have up to twelve pounds of tobacco or twenty-four cartons. Not bad for a $2.50 packet of seeds!

Tobacco seeds have a “half-life” of five to ten years. What that means is that if you stored your seeds in a cool, dry, dark place, in five years, you should have 50% germination rate. Most of the seeds I sell are open pollinated so seeds can be saved for future sowings. So, if you are thinking about trying to grow your own, go ahead, get them now while the price is low and before our government bans the sale of tobacco seeds. It could happen! Visit www.virtualseeds.com/tobacco.html to view all our tobacco selections.

conclusion of tomato saga in aerogarden

Today I decided to go ahead and pull my tomato plants from my aerogarden unit.  Some good and poor results to chronicle. On the good side, the plants grew extremely well in the unit! Even though I kept prunning them back to keep them under the 24″ high light arm, they exceeded their growth expectations and some vines were up to 3.5 feet in length when I terminated them today. The “same” sister plants that were started in this unit and then transplanted out to my ground garden are much more compact and are probably 2.5 feet tall at their tallest but are covered in blossoms and starting to set fruit.

great root systems

My indoor plants grown in the AeroGarden however only set out a few flowers which resulted in about a dozen fruits. So I conclude that I should have used a different variety of tomato in the first place and needed to adjust the nutrients to a more “bloom” formula. This means I would have used a different companies hydroponic solutions instead of the aerogarden nutrients.  Notice how full these roots systems are! The plants really thrived even through the growth was more vegetative rather than fruiting which of course is the object in growing tomatoes!

Still not having to combat bugs and slugs is a definite plus and it’s nice to know that plants like tomatoes can be grown successfully indoors any time of year. I think I will use a “determinate” variety next time. Tomatoes are determinate and indeterminate. Let me clarify:

Determinate refers to tomatoes that bloom all at once and fruit all at once , then are done for the season. This type of tomato is most often stocky, short, and does not require staking. The red and yellow tomatoes in the Aerogarden tomato seed kit are just such a plant and can be grown in the standard size AeroGarden.

Indeterminate refers to tomatoes that “vine”, they set blooms and fruit continuously until they are killed off by frost in autumn months.

So, I will clean up my aerogarden unit, sanitized it, and consider what next to grow in it! Thanks for following along with me on this little gardening adventure!

Joyce

PS: Here is a great short article on how to prune tomatoes. Wish I had read this earlier when I was pruning my plants! Could have made a difference in fruit production I think.

safer tomatoes

This is very cool. My first cherry tomato from my Aerogarden unit. With the current concerns about safety of our field crops, I can feel good about these little gems grown hydroponically and in less than 3 months from seed to fruit! How great is that?

my first ever You Tube video!

I decided to try my hand at making a movie on planting my topiary. Hope you like it!

Hmmm, for some reason I can’t get it to embed, so here is the url: My First You Tube Video

Joyce

Upgrading my hydroponic system at home

I am very pleased to be finally replacing my shop light set-up with a bonafide lighting system! I want to grow my favorite salad veggies in a 4′ x 4′ space and who knows what else. The shop lights with the florescent grow lights were adequate for leafy greens and herbs but I wanted to be able to grow flowering or fruiting plants too, like ripe from the vine tomatoes in January!

The Sun System 7 comes with capacity to have both metal halide and high sodium pressure bulbs for full spectrum lighting. This will serve for both vegetative and flowering plants, so the complete picture. Later on, I will decide on my actual growing units. I may put together a home made setup like I had last year or perhaps get a packaged set such as the Water farm set or maybe the Eurogrower. Haven’t decided yet.

Topiaries

Have you thought about adding a topiary to your garden but unsure how? We have a vendor who offers a nice selection of topiary frames, some already mossed like this one, or just the wire frame.

This corgi topiary came already stuffed with moss so I just added plants and viola! a really cute addition for my garden. Actually, he will reside on my deck along with my other container plants and I am sure to get lots of comments on him.

This little guy is proudly sporting a blooming white bacopa on his back and hairy thyme on his rump. I also have a different type of thyme on his head and around his collar area. That thyme should have tiny white flowers on it this summer.

Pictured here with my real live corgi, Toby!

I am always adding something new at Virtual Seeds. Look for topiaries, fire pits, musical windchimes, and more in our Garden Decor section.

Joyce

baby tomato growing

Finally my little babies are big enough to take a picture of. The box fan is doing a great job of wind pollination too.

I cleaned out my other aerogarden unit and have planted lettuce mix seeds. Even though our outdoor garden is growing, I figured that having fresh lettuce for summer salads available right from my kitchen was worthwhile. And since lettuce is not very summer-heat tolerant, they will love being in a more controlled environment in the house. And no bugs dining on them too!

Our outdoor garden is now planted with the remaining four tomato plants that were germinated along with my current aero-tomato plants but of course they are no where near ready to flower or produce fruit yet. They are about half the size too.
We’ve got corn, beans, peas, and peppers planted too. Not to mention the Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds for our local “friendly” competition.

I have just added shade sails to my inventory of store products. These are very popular this year not only for looks but they block out up to 90% of UV rays from the sun and temperatures underneath can be up to thirty degrees cooler too. Check em out!

54 days to blooms!

Seeing is believing with the Aerogarden system. I now have fully opened tomato blossoms so fruit is not too far away. Since tomatoes are pollinated by insects or wind, I have set up a household fan to give a gentle breeze to my plants. Not only will this assist in pollination but stresses the branches with a little wind resistance which will only make them stronger.

I can’t say enough nice things about the “after the sale” customer service from Aerogarden people. They have replaced my defective upgrade hood and all the lights. I got them yesterday and replaced the original hood. Everything is looking great and the plants will do even that much better with all three lights working instead of just the two they had been growing on with.

I reseeded my garden starter tray with new seeds four days ago. Already I have cosmos flowers germinating and I notice a morning glory seed and sunflower seed pushing their way up too!

Tomato flowers forming and plants ready for transplanting

Wow! Tomato flowers are starting to form and in only six weeks from seed planting in my AeroGarden! This is just truly amazing.

We will be transplanting out baby plants from our garden starter kit tomorrow straight into the garden beds outside. Looks like a good day to do that as the weather will be mild and rain is again forecast for the weekdays. On with the battle with the slugs!

Pictured are the cucumber and pepper plants. We got sixteen pepper to germinate out of eighteen! Amazing! I have always failed to germinate peppers, always! Out of seventy plugs, we only had seven no-shows, so a 90% germination success rate.

I will be starting some new flower seeds in the starter kit, cosmos and morning glory vines.