Growing big, contest-winning tomatoes in half-wine barrel containers – My Method

By Zack Chavez

Gardening in containers is a great way to grow tomatoes when you have limited space.  Using containers allows you to easily set up your plant with your choice of soil mix rather than in-ground gardening, and you won’t have to worry about underground pests that might want to feast on your plant roots.  The structure and limited space actually encourages upward growth that will give your plant maximum exposure to sunlight.  With the growing technique described here, you will be rewarded with delicious, large tomatoes at harvest time.

I use  half-wine barrels for my containers.  They give plenty of room for the roots to grow and they are easy to maintain.

Select your plant.  Choose a variety that is known for big fruit.  I grow Delicious and Big Zac varieties for my competition tomatoes.    I transplant my seedlings into the wine barrels during the first half of April.

 Prepare the container by drilling 10 ¼-inch holes in the bottom, then place 2 inches of gravel in the bottom for drainage.  Place the container in a location where it will get the maximum sun.  You will need at least 8 hours of sun a day.  Make sure the container is level and elevated from the ground by at least an inch.  Use bricks or 2x4’s to form a base for the container.

 Week 1 - Planting the seedlings.  Note - 1 plant per barrel

 

Week 10 - The plants are healthy

Mix your soil thoroughly with the following ingredients in a wheelbarrow before placing it in the container:

Sphagnum Peat Moss, 1.5 cu ft
Vermiculite, 1 cu ft
Sand, 1 60-lb bag
Wood Ash, 2 quarts
Compost, 1 cu ft
Lime, ¼ quart
Fertilizer, ¼ quart.   Use slow release granules, NPK = 5-6-5.

You should have approximately 13” of soil from the bottom of the container. Bury the plant deeper than they come in the pot, all the way up to a few top leaves.   Place a handful of fertilizer in the hole before planting.  Sprinkle a snail deterrent around your plant.   Stake your plants with a sturdy, non-pressure treated, 6’ high stake or a tomato cage.   The tomato cage must be at least 6 feet tall.  Be prepared to tie guy lines to the cage to keep the plant upright when it gets to be top-heavy.

This Big Zac is over 7 feet tall.

Watering

Water deeply and regularly while the plant is developing, about a half quart of water every two days.   If your soil mix and drainage are as recommended above, there is no chance that you will over-water.


Here’s my recommended watering schedule:

Weeks 1-2 ½ quart every 2 days
Weeks 3-4 ½ quart every day
Weeks 5 –6 1 quart every day
Weeks 7-10 1 gal every 2 days
Weeks 11-13 1 gal daily
Weeks 14 to end of season 2 gals daily

I have an automatic watering system.  I use a bubbler with an adjustable head to regulate water flow, fed from a ¼ inch tubing.  I am able to set the duration and frequency of the watering with a programmable timer that I purchased at our local Ace Hardware store.

Fertilizing

Fertilize your tomato plant with Miracle-Gro® Water Soluble Tomato Plant Food.  Feed  every 7 to 14 days during the growing season.  Follow directions on the package for dosage.  Side dress with one cup of slow release granule fertilizer (NPK 5-6-5) monthly.

Pruning Out the Suckers

Tomato suckers are the growth that appears in the crotch between the stem and a branch.  If left to grow, they will become another main stem with branches, flowers, fruit and more suckers of their own.   You may be setting more fruits if you let the suckers to grow, but if you are aiming for big fruits, get rid of the suckers.

Sucker Growth

Training Your Plant

While keeping suckers at bay, pick off all flower clusters until your main stem is roughly ¼ inch in diameter.  Once you have a nice thick stemmed plant stop pinching the flower clusters and let some go, but only one flower per cluster – pinch the rest. At this point when the tomatoes are now on the vine you should have one tomato per cluster.  Continue to pinch off the suckers.   Now all you have to do is wait for the tomatoes to ripen, then you can pick the biggest one for your winning tomato in the competition.

                                          Week 28 - It's harvest time!

The Final Chapter

By Dave Chavez

It’s been more than a year since we’ve made a post, titled “Looks Who’s Home”.  A lot has happened, so  here we go.

First, the tone of this entry.  Since we started this blog Dad has periodically brought up the subject of this final post.  “Do you think it’s going to have a happy ending?”, he’d ask, and we’d laugh.  I don’t think we’re the kind of family to set false expectations.  From us you won’t hear “Don’t worry, I’m sure everything is going to be okay”.  We’re a little more realistic:  “If the ending isn’t quite what you want, who gets your truck and the .45 semi-automatic?” (model 1911, US Govt Issue)

This story is a good one.  Mom and Dad are home now, both “cancer free”, settling back into their normal routines.  It’s about as simple as that.  It wasn’t easy at all.  But as they’ve lived their lives, they got through all of it without complaining, by not giving up, challenging the status quo and breaking the rules.  Remember, this is the couple who in 1962 drove from courthouse to courthouse, starting in Georgia, ending in South Carolina, to find a clerk who would look past the color difference in their skin and marry them.

Dad came home from the hospital skinny and weak, unsure if the surgeon had removed the tumor.   He had new things to manage:  16 weeks of chemo, colostomy bag, more surgery, and an air fryer.   In case you don’t remember, he was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, not allowed to eat and sipping only ice chips.  He had some long nights (without Fox News) dreaming the morning might include juice, or a few sips of clear broth.  Maybe someday he could enjoy a plate of spare ribs.  Against this commercial he was understandably defenseless.

Now home, he had to recover under the cloud of uncertainty of the surgical success.  Did they get it?  Do they need to go back in?  Had it spread?  Was it gone?

After he built up some weight and strength, Dr. Chai ordered a post surgical MRI.  The interpretation of that scan showed suspicious shadows.   A low point here.  None of us wanted to believe the report.  Dr. Chai showed us the images online, circling the whitish blurry shape.  “See?”  Well, how could we see?  None of us, including I presume Dr. Chai, had been trained to read MRI scans.   Maybe it was our skepticism, or maybe Dr. Chai didn’t believe it either, or maybe it was just good medical practice, but she referred us to two expert physicians in SF.  We’ll see what they had to say.  Good thing about two others, my Dad pointed out, was that with Dr. Chai we’d have three opinions–no chance for a tie.  Later Dad would say “doesn’t matter what they want, I get the final vote.”

So maybe he willed that blurry whitish thing away, or maybe it was nothing to worry about at all, or maybe it wasn’t anything more than scar tissue, but the other two Dr.s concluded there was nothing to worry about.  Their opinion:   no evidence of a tumor.

Since then Dad’s been through more tests just to make sure there’s no suspect activity.   Just the other day he had a routine followup visit and all looked good.   But the next day they asked him to come in for a CT scan — something in the bloodwork looked suspicious.  You can read about the CEA bloodtest, or if you are like Alexa, the details are amazingly available from memory.   It’s an indicator of cancer activity in the large intestine and rectum.

I called my Mom the other day about the results of the CT scan.  She told me Dr. Chai had just called to let them know that there was nothing to worry about.   Great news.  “Where’s Dad?”, I asked.  “Oh, he’s out at the property, shooting with his friends”.    He wasn’t waiting around for the test results.  He took the truck with his buddies, and went out to shoot his .45.

A few more thoughts

So much has been learned about cancer in the last 20 years.  Those advancements in understanding and treatment applied directly to my parents’ outcomes.   My Mom’s condition and treatment were almost routine.  Not very long ago they wouldn’t have known where to begin.

Here’s an interesting viewpoint:

Our bodies are producing cells by the millions every day, and once in a while a mistake is made.  Those cells are normally destroyed by mechanisms that are vigilantly looking for such mutations.  In that light the definition of cancer is somewhat arbitrary.   In reality, the processes are happening all the time.

Tactical Shooting at the Gedunk

By Zack Chavez

Our daughter Tina practices tactical shooting with her 9 mm Glock 19 pistol on a sunny day at the Gedunk Shooting Range. This drill is to shoot at a silhouette target at 7 yards with 5 rounds, the first 3 shots to the chest and the next two to the head in less than 5 minutes. She can shoot!  The pistol was a birthday present from me last year. Video by our son Carl.