Review: Even an experienced patio tomatoes grower found useful ideas
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 22, 2013
I have been growing patio tomatoes on my kitchen deck for many years. I always look for new ideas to improve my tomato garden and to prolong the fairly short New England growing season. Tomato Container Gardening started a bit slow, but about 1/3 into the book even an experienced patio tomato grower like myself found some interesting and useful ideas.Some of the ideas I liked is the ideas about preparing the soil prior to planting - covering the pot in plastic bags and fertilizing one week prior to planting.  Another idea that was interesting is what to do in the fall to prolong the season by pruning late in the season and how to force the plant  to ripen faster.  I will definitely try these out this fall.I also thought the section on watering was very good.  The key to successful patio garden is good irrigation.  I have a pretty extensive drip irrigation system controlled by a timer. The authors covers this option as well as several others, including how to build your own self-watering container at a lot lower price than buying one at the garden store.There is one technique that I use that have not been covered by the book. This approach helps me extend the growing period by starting earlier. I start my tomato seedlings under a pop-up umbrella and hand pollinate the tomatoes.  With a pop-umbrella greenhouse I typical my have the first green tomatoes appear during the last week of May, which is pretty amazing in the cold New England climate.  Here is one of the pop-up umbrellas I useGreenThumb Pop-Up Greenhouse.  Note that my review of the umbrella contains the description of the pollinating technique I use while the tomato plants are isolated from the bees.The book ends with a few of the author's favorite recipes, including green tomatoes.  There is always a bunch of green tomatoes left on the vine when my growing season is over, so I will be giving this recipe a try in the fall.This book was useful even for someone who has been growing patio tomatoes for years, and certainly will be very educational for those who are just starting out.Ali Julia review