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dottie_in_charlotte

the'Starting a Vegetable Garden' thread reminds me..

I'm still cringing. My crazy friend with a brown thumb (isn't that the opposite of a green thumb?) bought one of those upside down tomato towers from Sams Club.

Flimsy thing, free standing.

It's not the hang up bag but a 5' tall 'thing' with a planting tray on top and a base you fill with water to steady it.

I think one hard hit with the kid's soccer ball will tip the whole thing over.

So, we put it together. Now the top where you plant the tomatoes has a tray about 6" deep. About 2'x2' square BLACK PLASTIC (think those little roots are gonna cook?)

She bought 8 tomato plants , the Bonnie ones with the biodegradable pot the roots grow through.

After scraping off most of the soil (and roots)(as I cringed) she squished the remaining soil and roots to a size diameter to match the hole (maybe 1 1/4" hole) and shoved it up from the bottom.

We talked her into only planting one plant per hole.

She was convinced 2 per hole would fit. Um, yeah..maybe now but not when they grow.

Damaged roots exposed to full hot sun

until she comes back from the garage with an open bag of completely dried out generic indoor/outdoor potting soil.

Throws the bag on the top of the planter (squishing the roots further) and proceeds to tilt and dump the contents into the planting tray. Filled about 2" deep the roots were still exposed.

We're talking 4 healthy tomato plants stuck in 4 holes upside down in bone dry potting soil.

Then, she proceeds to unpack all these plastic bags of plants. Three pots of basil..5 plants per pot,three trailing verbena, two good sized pots of oregano and two pots of parsley.

Meanwhile, the tomato roots are screamin' to be covered in ANYTHING to get out of the sun.

And then, she realizes she has to go out and buy more potting soil but wants to wait until her kids get home from school so they can come too. Then I suppose they'll stop and get something to eat so it won't be a quick trip.

I hope I convinced her not to try and put more than a couple plants in on top of the tomatoes.

I kept trying to leave..I couldn't watch this anymore.

I left after stopping her from sprinkling MiracleGro granules (the concentrate you dissolve in water and water the foliage) directly on the potting soil and exposed tomato roots.

I love my friend and she did this in front of 2 gardeners so I wasn't the only one cringing. We just didn't want to gang up on her to make her do it right.

Hey, for all we know, she'll have the best crop of tomatoes in the neighborhood.

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