Tomato Season Has Begun

It's that time of year again: tomato planting time!

Well, actually, as I mentioned, we managed to plant our wee tomato seeds before we left for vacation, but I didn't manage to get around to blogging it until today. So now the little fellows have been in their starter pods for about a month already and are looking pretty grown up! Micha's brother did us the huge favor of watching over the tomatoes while we were away and he has earned himself the well deserved title of Best Tomato Uncle Ever.

We decided on three different varieties of tomatoes this year to spice things up a bit. We once again went with the green-striped "stick tomatoes" (I sometimes wonder how accurate these translations are...) because they were so damn cute and delicious last year.

Also, I really liked that their scientific name is "Tigerella." It makes them seem so much more feisty. The next variety was actually chosen by Micha, though I imagine most people will think it was quite obviously my decision to plant "party tomatoes" and that is fiiiiine by me! Party tomatoes! We are going to have so much fun together.

The last kind we planted are "Datteltomaten" and I can't for the life of me remember the English  name of them (or read it on the pictures. And my googling is not up to par today, so I'll just let you know in the next tomato update post instead, deal?). I have high hopes for all of these little fellows.

We were lucky enough to have all but two seeds actually grow and survive thus far. Although Best Tomato Uncle Ever said that three of them weren't really doing much for a while, so he, very diligently, dug up the seeds, replanted them at the very top of the pod, carefully watered them again, and them set them on the heater for an entire day to warm up. And ta-da! It worked! They caught up with the others! (See how he earned his title? Even I wouldn't have had the patience or dedication to do that!)

This weekend, we're going to plant each little guy in his own pot to let them spread their proverbial wings. I've learned over the last two years that repotting is very stressful for the little fellows, so this time we plan to only do so once. And even better: both the pods and the containers can be planted directly into the dirt! The pods just mix in with the dirt, and the containers will basically dissolve over time from the water. No stress necessary! I'm highly confident this method will give us the best tomatoes ever. Now if only we had a balcony that could actually fit 24 full grown tomato plants...