Organic Gardening – Fun with Tomatoes

Tomatoes are probably my favorite garden vegetable; mainly because you can mix it with so many other fresh garden vegetables and have a new pleasing dish at every meal.

Tomato Hanging Basket

In order to make sure I have a tomato plant as close to the kitchen as I can I always grow a Tomato Hanging Basket. In a normal hanging basket I plant a little leaf lettuce, one basil plant, and a flower (for color). Sometime I stick in one Scarlet Runner Bean plant.

When setting up this basket I make sure I have good compost and fertilizer in the mix because this basket takes a lot of fertilizer for the plant varieties.

After I water it and make sure it set, I them add a small cherry tomato plant from the bottom. Most hanging baskets have an area that can be removed on the bottom for drainage and I add the tomato plant from this. It sounds strange, but this combination grows well and I have a mini salad basket on the porch.

It’s colorful and pleasing to the eyes. It’s one of my hanging baskets that get the most comments.

Tomato Bushel Basket

If you want one more small container garden near the door or patio that you can stick a few garden vegetables in I suggest a Tomato Bushel Basket.

Start with a bushel basket and add a lot of compost and fertilizer to the bottom of the basket. Fill the rest of the basket with soil or compost if you have it. I place a plastic pop bottle upside down in the basket halfway in the ground with the bottom cut off. (This is my deep watering funnel method) I will fill this pop bottle with water and it waters the basket deep down in the soil where the roots are.

In this basket I will plant my favorite tomato, some lettuce, a few beans, a few herbs, and possibly a few beans or a cucumber plant. This basket is colorful and will give me enough fresh vegetables for a fresh salad.

Tomato plants look great in flower beds with their bright colored fruit and they grow well with flowers too.

I have seem tomato plants hanging from window boxes in apartments; usually the smaller cherry tomatoes, but I have seem the larger tomato varieties too.