I’ve had an old Galaxy Nexus repurposed for monitoring the garden while on vacation, but after a while I realized a better project with this setup would be timelapse of the entire season for the garden. Initially I tried the timelapse feature in the Android Camera app, but after viewing the footage, the long night…
Extended reservoir for self-watering plant containers
I have 6 Ikea Nektarin self watering pots that do great for most plants, but when it comes to growing tomatoes, cucumbers, or other water sucking plants that go through a gallon or more of water on a hot day, the included reservoir is insufficient. I tried the ceramic watering cones while on vacation, but sometimes…
Grafting Tomatoes
So far the hardest part of grafting tomatoes is getting germination predictably on time and estimating growth patterns so the stems of the scion and rootstock are roughly the same size. The actual graft and post-graft care are straightforward as long as you follow steps to ensure a gradual exposure to normal conditions. The two…
DIY Collapsible Tomato Cages for Containers
Update: I managed to find a retail solution that is readily available on Amazon: the tomato arm cage support. The structure below still works, is custom tailored to any need, but the tomato arm cages are more flexible in purpose with a smaller footprint when not in use. Couple these tomato arm cage supports with…
Cucumbers
My first trial with growing cucumbers in San Francisco was with Straight Eight. It grew to several inches tall and withered to nothing. The next year I tried the same variety with the self watering RGGS and it grew, very slowly. Over 6 months a total of 7 cucumbers were picked totaling 1.4 kilos. Not very…
Urban Garden 2014
The 2014 balcony and indoor garden has been coming together well so far. Instead of a ton of varieties of tomatoes, we’re adding some variety to see how other stuff grows that we would like to eat. The increase in the quantities of seeds we now posess have necessitated a trip to Daiso to spend…
Potting Soil Recycling
Since I live in an urban area, managing potting soil used for growing vegetables means recycling it in the most efficient way for re-use. My garden consists of eight 3 gallon pots and eight 5 gallon buckets for a total of 64 gallons of volume, which is about 8.5 cubic feet. After a year of…
San Francisco Fog Tomato
Talk about a cold weather tomato. It totally lives up to its namesake. They taste like typical hot-house tomatoes from the grocery store. Medium gel, with a mealy texture. That said, I only rate it 5/10…however, I would consider growing it again. Why? This plant produces loads of tomatoes that after 5-10 seconds in boiling water, the…
Black Prince Tomato
This was one of my all time favorite tomatoes (rating 9/10). The flesh is dark and multi-colored, flavors are complex, yet sweet, medium gel and tender flesh. Nearly no blossom scar, the stem anchor is shallow, almost non-existent, the skin is blemish free on most, and no cracking…except when there was some inconsistent watering. The…
Ispolin Malinovyi Tomato
Rating 4/10. 160 days from seed to first pick. Total lifespan 178 days. Average weight 252 gr ams. Total harvest weight 6.3 kilos. I’m not that thrilled with this tomato. It’s going to go towards many bottles of sauce however. Freshly sliced, this tomato was crunchy, and the skin super thick. Flavor was really mild….