Good Morning, 'Maters.

I like these mornings during vegetable season ... I get up when it's dark, get the kids off to school, and spend a few minutes with the tomatoes before going to work.

It's nice.

I know people have very strong opinions about organic versus non-organic, and what kind of growing medium is best, and even what variety of tomato is best, but I'm not really a "point of view" gardener. I'm not really trying to impose my belief system on the garden. I think I've tried almost everything, and you know what? I've grown good tomatoes almost every way. I've harvested excellent, tasty tomatoes with regular Miracle-Gro tomato fertilizer and common bagged soil—just like I've harvested awesome tomatoes with high-end micronutrient foliar sprays, exotic organic fertilizer blends, homemade compost, and custom soil mixes. I've eaten good tomatoes from the ground, containers and Earthboxes.

I would never want to make it seem harder than it is. If anyone was to ask me, "What's the best way to grow vegetables?" I'd say: every day, bit by bit.

No matter what other choices you make, I think if you're willing to spend a little time every morning with your plants (or at least every other morning), everything will be fine. Give them water on a consistent schedule (I actually water every day), feed small amounts of food consistently, and mostly, pay attention. Your plants will do a remarkable job of telling you what's going on. Do you see spots on leaves? Yellow streaking? Are there holes chewed in the leaves? Are they surrounded by flies? Are the blossoms dropping off or setting fruit? Is the fruit developing normally?

The only way to really find out what's going on is just to keep an eye open for it. And chances are, it will be easier to deal with than you think.

So these are easy, rhythmic days. Watering, watching, feeding weekly, tying up the vines as they grow, and plucking off suckers. Really, there are much worse ways to start a day.

Problems ... already

Well, well, here's something interesting.

One of my growing experiments this year is using 5-gallon coconut coir grow bags. I bought the product from HydroGardens, and they're really cool. The coir comes in a little block in a bag. You add water, and the brick expands into a 5-gallon bag full of coconut coir grow medium. Coconut is a little bit different than peat ... it retains water better, and most importantly, it's completely sterile and pH neutral. With peat, we add dolomite lime to balance the pH (peat is acidic and dolomite lime is a base), but the dolomite has the added benefit of supplying calcium and magnesium for the plants. With coconut, however, you can't use dolomite because it will raise the pH since the coconut is already neutral. Tomatoes, like most vegetables, like a slightly acidic environment (around 6.0 to 6.5 on the pH scale), but not too much.

So how do you deal with the calcium/magnesium issue in coconut? If you can't get it from dolomite lime, then where? I mix agricultural gypsum in at planting (for calcium), and supplement weekly with magnesium. Additionally, I feed with a balanced fertilizer and add bone meal (for more calcium). This has worked for me, and I've gotten some great tomatoes from these coconut coir grow bags.

This year, though, something new and interesting and awful is happening. I'm growing yellow pear tomatoes in the bags. One plant is vigorous and huge and beautiful and already flowering (the bottom photo). The other is stunted, with severely curled leaves on the top of the plant (the top photo). I've inspected carefully for insects (there are none), and I don't think there's a problem with temperature, watering, or nutrients, which can all cause tomato leaf curl.

Instead, I believe this plant is infected with the tomato leaf curl virus. This virus causes stunted plants, curled leaves from the top of the plant down, and new growth that stands upright instead of laying flat. I've never had this problem before. According to my reading, infected plants can still yield tomatoes, but if they are infected young (as this one was), yields might be reduced or in some cases, completely non-existent. There is no cure for tomato leaf curl virus.

So sadly, to prevent the spread of this to my other plants, I'm going to have to destroy the plant. Which means fewer yellow pear tomatoes for me and one long face ...

Brandywines at Home

Woo hoo! We have tomatoes!

So I've finally finished planting the tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. It's been kind of a slow process ... with me running out every so often and doing another container. I still have to get to the strawberries, broccoli and lettuce. But that's okay, because there's lots of time.

These pictures show the basic large-container set-up for the Brandwine tomatoes. I'm using 25-gallon containers with two vines per container. The soil mix was:

• 2 parts peat moss
• 2 parts composted cow manure
• 1 part perlite
• dolomite lime (a few handfuls)
• bone meal (for calcium)
• blood meal (for nitrogen)

This is an organic-based growing mix that is enriched with slow-release nutrients and will provide plenty of calcium and magnesium. I'm watering every day in the morning. If possible, water your tomatoes in the morning, always at the soil level. Never water tomatoes from above and avoid water and dirt splashing up on the leaves. This will reduce the chance of bacterial diseases.

As for fertilizing, I didn't fertilize at all the first week, but yesterday I started with a program of weekly fertilization with Espoma TomatoTone organic tomato fertilizer. You can use pretty much any vegetable fertilizer you want—I like Espoma because it's organic and I've had good results with it. Here's a tip: whatever fertilizer you're using, use it at half- or quarter-strength every week instead of biweekly or monthly. Plants are just like us ... they prefer lots of small meals rather than gorging on one giant one.

I'm also supplementing once a week with a 1/4-teaspoon of magnesium to boost the plants a bit. Magnesium is widely available in garden centers.

Finally, I'm pinching off all the side shoots on the vining plants (indeterminate tomatoes). These little suckers emerge from the space between the leaf stem and the main vine stalk. If allowed to grow unchecked, they'll reduce the yield and increase leaf mass, which reduces airflow and increases risk of a fungal or bacterial disease. So yeah, keep the vines clean.

And that's pretty much it for the big container-grown plants. This is the great part: it takes a few days for the vines to acclimate to their new home, and then they start growing like crazy. I'm already seeing the first tiny flower buds hanging like little bells, but there are no open flowers yet.

Finally, I'd like to offer a shout-out to this weather. Last year, we had a two-week heat wave in October that nearly did the plants in. This year? Just perfection as far as I can see. This is truly tomato weather.

So you tell me ... how are your plants doing?