The Great Tomato Disaster

My first foray as a gardener has wholeheartedly FAILED!!!!!

I may be a pretty good triathlete, a fairly decent cook who continues to learn, a semi-computer geek who likes databases, and a wine and cheese connoisseur, but as a gardener, it's plain and simple: I sucked this year.

The only thing that has been bright and plentiful is my basil.

The green, full tomato plants I so excitedly took pictures of a couple months ago have, um...well..I won't take a picture because it's just sad. I've pulled out 3 out of the 6 plants and laid them to rest. I'm considering yanking the other 3 as well.

Basically I learned the following:

• When using half wine barrels as planters, it is wise to drill holes in the bottom. Particularly before your plants start dying.
• Organic pest spray (for white flies and aphids, which I had BOTH of) is crap. Use the real stuff. You're going to wash your tomatoes anyway.
• When using half wine barrels, it may be wise to consider lining them, as it is possible acid from the wine can leach into the soil (this is a guess on my part).
• Consider using high quality soil and not stuff from Ace Hardware. I believe in addition to poor drainage and pests, my poor plants didn't have enough nutrients in the soil and lacked nitrogen.
• Don't over water tomatoes. Just don't.
  

Sigh. Oh and I yielded ONE cucumber out of TWO cucumber plants! WTF?!? They produced tons of flowers, but no cucs. I yanked those, too. My pepper plant has one and a half peppers and it has suddenly stopped growing. However, the mystery here lies in the fact that the pepper plant is in its own pot, not in the wine barrels. So again, I come back to soil and nutrients.

Now I have all this basil and no tomatoes and I'll have to go to the farmer's market to buy somebody ELSE'S home-grown tomatoes. Or go visit my mom and pick some off her plants.

Live and learn!