The Amazing Taxi Tomatoes in a 10 inch hydroponic basket (in a 5 gallon bucket)

Of all the fool-proof tomato plants that I have grown, I don’t believe that I have ever grown anything that compares with the Taxi tomato. This tomato variety is, by far, the most dummy-resistant variety. It can suffer multiple stress-related injuries to the plant and its roots and still live to produce a decent crop of tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The tomato plant that I have pictured is in a 10 inch hydroponic basket within a 5-gallon bucket. The plant did extremely well and, given the conditions, produced very nicely. The tomatoes of this variety are ripe when they turn from bright yellow to a more golden-yellow color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would I recommend this variety for a container? Yes. There are very few tomato varieties that I believe would truly thrive in a container, but this is definitely one of them.

 

Red Lettuce and Learning about Winter Bolting

So – this is a pretty difficult subject for me to address mainly because the local squirrels ravaged my little lettuce seedlings the same way they did with my Tondo Massafra. Even with barriers, the squirrels worked their way around to eat or dig up most all of the plants I grew.

 

I eventually resorted to grow the lettuce up on the balcony in pots, with aluminum foil around each plant to deter the squirrels from digging in them.

Though this mostly did the trick of keeping the squirrels from digging up the plants, they did occasionally still dig in it and the aluminum foil was a mess. Additionally, the aluminum foil also did little to keep the plants moist.

The soil under the foil would become dry from the frequent winds we experienced. These winds were so constant, that they wicked a large portion of the moisture from the plants – which stressed the plants enough to cause them to become bitter.

So – putting foil over the soil of potted plants to keep squirrels away is a messy, inconvenient process that is only worthwhile if your plants don’t turn bitter. Perhaps sometime in the future I will grow out lettuce transplants in the greenhouse for putting out into the garden. But only if I can somehow protect them from the squirrels.

 

2020 Backyard Sweet Potatoes

Given that sweet potatoes don’t last long and that they generally don’t build up a lot of disease problems from one year to another, I planted my sweet potatoes in the exact same place as last year. Not in my main garden, but off to the side – next to where I plant my tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like the previous year, I started my sweet potatoes by growing them out in the greenhouse, then planting the slips out in the garden. I shared as many of the slips as I could with others – so as to not waste any. 

 

 

 

 

By late November, it was time to harvest the sweet potatoes. I usually come through with scissors to cut off all of the vines first and to reduce the possibility of getting a lot of the milky sap on my clothing. After cutting them back on the top, then I dig around the bottom to expose the actual sweet potatoes. This is best done by using some kind of fork to loosen the soil, then going back to gently feel out each sweet potato by hand.

Sweet Potato is in the Morning Glory Family