Do My Eyes Deceive Me?

Do my eyes deceive me or are these the first buds on my determinate tomato plant??  This year is my first go at it so if that's them, I'll be very excited!

Woo-hoo! Yes, they are!

Well done Fiz.  You are way ahead of me.

trolleydriver wrote:Well done Fiz.  You are way ahead of me.

Thanks guys! I'll keep you posted. I know a lot can still go wrong (dropped buds/blossoms, flowers that don't pollinate, blossom end rot, etc, etc.), so I'm cautiously optimistic. 

Trolley, I guess you could say I was extremely impatient to start, haha. I sowed the seeds February 25th inside and moved them out just under 3 months later. So they didn't have the ideal conditions for light, and the containers stayed so moist all the time because the pots were big and I didn't really "pot up". So I'm actually surprised they got to this point. Next time I'll probably wait a little longer before sowing.

I'm feeding them Schutlz brand liquid plant food, 10-15-10. This stuff is awesome, but I hope I'm giving it the right balance now that they've started producing buds. I know that the nitrogen should be a lot lower, but I'm hoping this won't do any harm since its more or less balanced and the phosphorous is the highest number. Fingers crossed!

 Sweet!  

How big is the plant?

Ginger Blue wrote:  Sweet!  

How big is the plant?

Hi Ginger, it is just under 2 feet tall. These are Renee's Garden Super Bush Container Tomatoes, they're supposed to grow 2 and half to 3 feet tall, so just under that it seems!

Wow; good job! I'm very impressed! If I experienced that kind of success early in the season, I'd repeat the process and wouldn't change a thing the following year(s).   

At this rate, you'll likely be enjoying tomatoes before my little plants even start flowering.  Maybe I should follow your example and sow the seeds earlier, next year...

Ginger Blue wrote:Wow; good job! I'm very impressed! If I experienced that kind of success early in the season, I'd repeat the process and wouldn't change a thing the following year(s).   

At this rate, you'll likely be enjoying tomatoes before my little plants even start flowering.  Maybe I should follow your example and sow the seeds earlier, next year...

Haha, I would say beginners luck, but I hope you're right! Truth be told, I think this particular plant got leggy, but hey, if it works, it works. :-p

I did put in a bit of extra effort making sure the little guys got enough light when they were inside for the last couple of months or so. I have an eastern exposure (sliding door) that goes to my terrace, where the plants would sit. If it was going to be a cloudy morning and sun in the afternoon, I would lug all the containers down the stairs (like 5 or 6 trips) and put them on the western window I have in the downstairs living room, haha. I did this a few times a week as needed. Guess it made a difference, but they were still getting barely 4-5 hours of filtered sunlight.