Started My Tomato and Pepper Seed and Sweet Potato Slips

[Bronx]

Got a late start for my area this year, but last week I started my tomato and pepper seeds. A couple weeks earlier I bought a purple sweet potato, put it in a cup of water and it has little shoots coming out so I'll be growing them too. I was a little worried about the potato because I didn't buy an organic one as a slip starter and have heard that non-organic sweets are sprayed with a sprout inhibitor for longer shelf life. Glad I took the chance because I like the taste of this variety; don't know what it's named but it tastes good.

Last year the area critters invaded my tomato garden and left precious few for us humans, so I wasn't going to even bother this year. However, I bought all dwarf varieties this year and plan to build cages around them in an attempt to keep the little raiders out. We'll find out how successful this idea is in a few months.

Bronx

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• This topic was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Bronx.
• This topic was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Bronx.

[BakerAunt]

Congratulations on getting your garden started, Bronx. I look forward to having one, probably not this year but next year when we live in Indiana permanently. My husband did do a winter garden in Texas. He harvested some small but sweet tasting carrots, and the lettuce and the spinach has been nice as well.

[Italiancook]

Bronx, please let us know at the end of the season if you were successful keeping critters away with dwarf plants & cages. It's impossible for me to have homegrown tomatoes. The deer, raccoons & squirrels have first dibs. Last year, my husband bought cages and set them up. We still had no tomatoes. So if you build a cage that keeps the critters out, or if the dwarf plants have some anti-repellent property, I'd like to know.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Italiancook.

[Bronx]

Thanks Baker Aunt. I love home grown tomatoes; nothing I can get in a store comes close.

Italiancook,

I'm just hoping I can contain the dwarf varieties to stay inside the cages so the animals can't get to them. You know how wild some tomato varieties can grow; 10 foot vines or longer.

One interesting thing from last year is they didn't really go after the cherry tomatoes and just concentrated on the full size ones. Maybe that will be a good trick to grow full size tomatoes as decoy plants and just harvest the cherries. It's hard to make a good tomato sandwich with cherry tomatoes, though.

Bronx

[Italiancook]

Thanks for the tip about critters not eating cherry tomatoes, Bronx. I didn't know that. I'll make sure my husband buys a couple of those plants to test out our critters.

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