Farming as a workout option

Two Wheels Urban Farm update

We have our first transplants in the ground! Today I put in the sugar snap pea sprouts, hoping to take advantage of the upcoming rains and warmer overnight temperatures. If all goes well, I should have some to bring to market in May.

Peas are in the ground!

Transplants are looking good. This little plant is kale.

Working out on the urban farm

This week my dad and I used shovels and a wheelbarrow to move 8 cubic yards of compost into the urban farm's garden plots (that's roughly 10,400 pounds of composted manure!). The compost is super important for the health of our crops and our soil's fertility and structure. It also combats pesky weeds and helps to hold moisture. All that hard work means tastier veggies this summer!

Our huge pile of compost-- I was so happy to see it arrive (and so much happier when we finished moving it!).

One of the benefits to this type of work is to the health of the farmer. According to my super scientific Googling, the average American office worker gets an average of 3,000 to 5,000 steps per day (this is supported by the office worker in our household who averages 4,000 steps). On just one of the days when we moved the compost I got 19,121 steps (this total does includes the 1/2 mile round trip walk to World of Beer for a much needed happy hour) and over the day I burned 3,062 calories. Not too shabby. And along with getting something important done, I didn't have to put on spandex!

What was I thinking ordering so much?!? 

I hope you all have a terrific week and a happy early growing season!

Tomatoes as houseplants

Two Wheels Urban Farm Update

Spring is here and the transplants are going! So far we have peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, onions, leeks, and lettuce. Hopefully our spring will dry out a bit and give me some pre-season time to prepare the beds for transplanting (transplanting is my favorite time of the year!).

Leek sprouts

Indoor Tomatoes

This winter I set up a light and shelving system for growing the urban farm's transplants this spring. I did some testing back in December with tomato plants and afterwards decided I couldn't throw out all of these healthy, beautiful plants, so I kept a single cherry tomato. The variety I kept was a Sunburst, which is indeterminate-- this means that it will continue to flower and grow new stems over time. Hypothetically, unless my plant gets diseased or I forget to water it, it should last indefinitely, just like your everyday house plant. I have my friend Lea to thank for her inspiration. She told me about a tomato plant living indoors in Alaska, and I realized there is no reason I can't make this work!

Interested in growing your own indoor tomato? Here are some steps to help you.

The pot I used is 10 inches across and 5 inches deep. I would think you could go quite a bit larger, but you definitely don't need to use a large pot. 

Transplant your seedling into very light soil or soiless planting mix. I used what I had around at the time, which is a soiless seedling mix. Anything light should work, since the objective is to keep the roots aerated.

I water my plant every day or two when the soil starts to dry (this depends on the size of the plant and how sunny and warm it's been) and I fertilize once a week with a water soluble organic vegetable fertilizer.

South-facing window.

Your plant should live in a south-facing window if at all possible. Even with this set up, because the winter is so dark here (the sun is very low in the horizon and there are a lot of cloudy days) I still need to keep some supplementary lights going during the day. I used two 18" grow bulbs in shop light fixtures (I picked up these lights with the fixtures for about $15 each at the hardware store). I keep the lights on from 6am until 10pm. But now that it's spring, there is a lot of light so I don't need to use them.

Your indeterminate tomato plant will need some kind of physical support-- this could be a traditional tomato cage or you could tie it up to a window.

The flowers will need a little help to become pollinated!

Lastly, and most importantly, how do you get fruit? At first I had flowers but no fruit. Then I realized that there were no insects flying into my flowers to spread the pollen around. In order to mimic those bugs, once you have flowers on your plant, give the flowers a gentle shake once a day to get that pollen spread around!

Starting to ripen...

Ready to eat!

If you decide to grow an indoor tomato, let me know how it goes!