Farmer Bill

This Top 5 list a day thing is starting to make my brain hurt. I'm kind of surprised that I've been able to come up with this much stuff to blog about and put it into a list format. No promises once the month is over and I win the Blog a Day in May Challenge.

Today's list . . . 5 things that I've learned trying to grow tomato plants on my patio.

1) It's been hard to get enough sunlight on them -- Lots of tall trees around, only small windows of sunlight available. Placing the plants in the right spots so they get as much as they can has been hard, they get moved often.

2) Not all plants grow at the same rate -- The grape tomato plant started smaller than the regular plant when I bought them, now it's the tallest. It's outgrown the stakes that I keep buying and I've had to rely on nails on the patio to tie string to and let the vine get support that way. The vine is really long.

3) Once the blossoms bloom, the tomatoes aren't quick to follow -- I've had blossoms to some degree for weeks. The blooms on the grape tomato plant open up but then they fall off. Not one single tomato has grown on that plant yet. The other plant had fruit form, but they are growing so slowly. I've counted 7 so far, but they have a lot of growing to do until they are ready to eat. They just don't appear to be getting bigger.

4) Knowing when and how much to water is challenging -- Supposedly, I haven't had to worry about this since there are holes in the bottom of the pots. I wonder if this, or the liquid fertilizer that I use, has anything to do with the blossoms falling off.

5) People think I get overly excited by growing these tomatoes -- Let's face it, I do. I've been wanting to do this for years and finally did it because Florida has a really long growing season. Maybe this is a precursor to what I'm going to be like as an old man; is there a huge garden in my future? I doubt it, I just really like tomatoes and thought that I could grow them cheaper than buying them in a grocery store.

I can't promise that I can share any tomatoes once they are ready to eat, at this point that moment in time seems too far in the future. If they start growing faster than I can eat them and you're in the Tally area, let me know if you'd want any.

Side note: After last week's donut list, I went to WCTV online and bought the Double Dollar Deal Gift Certificates for Donut Kingdom. This was $50 worth of donut gift certificates for $25; that's a good deal. The deal got better two days after I bought them ($50 worth for $15), but so what, I had already bought mine. I got them in the mail yesterday and was thrilled. Today, Adam tried to order them and was told that Donut Kingdom no longer accepts these certificates. I got the official email moments later telling me the same thing and how to get my money back. It wasn't a good day in my donut kingdom.