a good tomato, but not $100 a pound good

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I got me an AeroGarden Dreaming of nice luscious home-grown real ripe tomatoes in my crappy little no-sun apartment.

Today I harvested and ate my crop of Tomato, it was damn good, much better than the store.

But… I calculated the electricity cost. Around ten dollars for the last 6 months. For one little cherry tomato. Well over $100 per pound, and that’s not even with the cost of the garden. It really wasn’t that good of a tomato.

Ohh well I learned a bit from my mistakes, hopefully the itty-bitty peppers I just planted will give me a slightly better ROI. :wink:

2

Heh, I should hook you up with my friends with sunny properties who get gajillions of tomatoes each year. It’s so bad/good this year that one friend has resorted to bringing tomatoes to the post office to give away, since she’s already loaded up all her friends. :wink:

3

Aerogrow has been cheaping out on the fertilizer tablets, they contain just barely enough nutes to produce tomatoes, I suppliment the tabs with some Schultz Bloom Plus High-Phosporous fertilizer, as fruiting/flowering plants need a lot of phosphoric compounds to produce fruit/bloom

I’m growing the Mega Cherry Tomato kit that came with my AG6 Elite Plus (2’ arm and 3 CF bulbs), and ever since I started adding the SBP, my MegaCherries have been covered with blooms and already have two large marble sized tomatoes developing

If you have hard water, you may also want to try switching to distilled water, it supposedly makes a difference, I’ve had good results with our “Liquid Rock” well water though…

4

If it makes you feel any better, the cost of home vegetables grown under a fancy hydroponic setup might be even higher.

But hey, it’s your own tomato.

5

I swear, if I get one more bag of tomatoes left for me in someones mailbox…

going postal will be an option.:mad:

6

The OP’s Aerogrow is pretty much a fancy hydroponic setup.

7

Don’t feel bad…the grass in our backyard this summer was abysmal…and I figure for the money I have invested in that crap, it is costing me about 15 cents per blade of grass at this point.

I swear, next year I am ripping it all out and putting in gravel.

8

I adore my aerogarden, I had a herb one going for the past 6 months … I get 4 really huge sprigs of basil off it once a week, and my thyme and oregano look like they are trying to take over my sidetable…I use sprigs of them frequently as well … I am very happy with the aerogarden. I just started my tomato one [I started one of 2 tomato plants up about 2 weeks ago and it is already about 10 inches tall … I am going to start the second plant of it in a couple months so I have the tomato plants cycling on different schedules.

I have the aerogarden fertilizer for the herbs, but a bottle of something natural and fishy from the coop in willimantic that someone there recommends for tomatoes, if not, Ill shop around for a fertilizer.

But my chives and mint were failures … the mint died, and the chives dont seem to like being inside. Luckily we have both mint and chives outside in abundance =)

9

I actually had a lot of blooms, but only one ever fertilized. I tried Q-tips from one to the other, I tried shaking, I tried touching them together. Apparently I am just not competent to be a Bee

10

Try an electric toothbrush (I use my Sonicare), touch the vibrating brushhead (Band Name!) to the stamen of the flower (the pointy bit in the middle), you should see a shower of pollen erupt from the flower

I’ve tried both the Sonicare and a cheapo Crest Spinbrush, both work well, the Sonicare actually works too well, as it gives an almost 100% pollination rate…

…plus, the developing 'maters won’t have any Gingivitis issues either…

11

I forget where I heard this:

A city woman went to visit a friend in the country. Her friend spent the visit extolling the country, “You should move out here; it’s so safe, so quiet and peaceful.”

One day they went to the local town to go shopping, and the country friend locked her car. The city lady exclaimed, “Why are you locking the car? I thought it was safe out here!”

“You have to lock your car in August. Otherwise when you come back it’s full of zucchini.”

12

So…

Your stinger is smaller than a bee’s mate ? :slight_smile:
I think we got our tomatoes down to about $25 a pound this year :frowning:

13

Dude, what part of this seems like news to you? Did you really think that “crafting” something by hand is as economical as large scale farming?

I make bread. People tell me I should sell it. Oh really: It takes about 8 hours to make about 4 loaves of bread. Not including cost. What should I sell them for.

I also make socks. Around 20 hours a pair. What would you charge for 20 hours of work? More than a pair of socks?

The point of growing your own tomatoes isn’t to save money. Besides, you’re not paying only for the tomatoes, any more than I’m paying only for the socks or bread I make: the process is pleasurable.

That’s why it’s called a hobby.

14

true enough.

But I think the dude was hoping for a bit more than one cherry tomato.

Thats like buying a bass boat and catching one minnow the whole fishing season.

15

Exactly. I mean have you ever spent 20 hours making your socks, then at the end look at and realize you had only created a little cap for your pinky toe rather than the glorious whole sock you had anticipated?