Figuring out the best plants to grow
5:33 pm in Getting Started, Plants, posts with pitcures! by Hardware Junkie
Basically from this post:
http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/04/04/kinds-of-plants-you-can-grow-in-a-windowfarm/
I am growing cherry tomatoes, lettuce and summer savory (for my mom) in the farm. I am really worried the tomato plants are too large for the farm.
Anyone have any previous experience with specific plants? Should I be looking for “dwarf” tomato plants next time?
I am not really into herbs but has anyone else has good experience with other plants?
I haven’t created my window farm yet but used to grow tomatoes on my balcony. AFAIK you can get bush or vine tomatoes. Vine seem to be more common and I ran into the same problem of them growing over a metre high. The second downside I can think of is that tomato plants have a distinct smell that you might find off putting.
I’ve always found rocket to be good. Very hardy, tasty and if you cut off all the leaves it still grows back. I’ve had the same plants growing from the last 3 years.
I think it’s possible to make a bonsai tomato plant that will fruit. Trim it back a little on the leaves and on the roots. Keep doing this once a week until it starts to flower, and then just let it do what it will. Keep in mined that it will likely get twice the size; from beginning of flowering to harvest. This technique is very hard to master, so i would not recommend trying it on all your plants. The aim is to not put the plant into shock during this trimming, so if you try this, don’t cut too much off at a time. Some vitamin B-1 is said to help with shock, so putting little bit of “super thrive” in the nutes might help you.
You should check around to a variety of seed sites to see what kinds of hybrids are out there. A quick check of territorial seed (a local favorite of mine), has cherry, grape & currant tomato plants, as well as “greenhouse” tomatoes. All are smaller sized plants with heavy proliferation.
I would also try – tomatillos, hot peppers, basil & ground cherries…good luck!
Just a thought, but if you used determinant (+/- not vining- predetermined height), and plant it in the bottom of your farm, you could train it up the supports of those above it – the height on many standard apartment windows.
What about webbing string between the other planters? Tomatoes can be trained to climb anything, but you’re right, they do get heavy.
Good luck! Oh,and I am not a pro agronomist, just a home gardener, so take what I’ve said with a grain of salt.
There are two basic types of tomato plants–bush (or determinate) and vine (or indeterminate). Bush tomatoes stop growing at a certain point and produce their tomatoes all at once. Vine tomatoes go on and on. There are dwarf plants in both types, and these don’t have to produce cherry tomatoes–some dwarf plants produce larger tomatoes. If you want a smaller plant, try looking for “patio varieties” in seed catalogues, or “container varieties” There are hundreds of different types of tomato plants. If you want salad tomatoes, stay away from paste types–they won’t taste as good in salads. Basil is a really good thing to grow indoors, it likes sun and heat and the taste is amazing. It will also smell nice.
Try by changing plants to lower level, and use a tutor tool like galvanized wire or cotton wire to hold and guide stem and branches., I have 8 Beefsteak tomato plants guided with copper wire and its doing great! This variety takes a little bit more to grow and mature, but have a better flavor and size. Currently, the plant is moving up through the wire and looks fantastic, but I’m afraid soon, will need to be moved to a bigger pot
Certainly you can prune the leaves very hard.
From the main stem two growing tips sprout from almost the same place. The bottom one will be leaf, the top one flowering stem. Just allow two or three flowering stems to emerge for each plant. Allow just two leaf tips to grow full size. Also snip the top of the growing plant when it is lanky enough. All this stress actually causes the plant to hastily try to reproduce… via fruit of course!
Hi, I’m pretty new to this site and couldn’t figure out how to start my own topic (sorry). I am currently researching what kind of window farm to build, and am not sure where to start. I will probably be moving in 6 months, so I didn’t really want to build a big system only to move it in the middle of winter. I hope to have south facing windows in the new place since I don’t have them now. In the event my next place is just like my current one, what are my options for a window farm, and what can I grow there? I live in western Canada, and so there is a LOT of variation between summer and winter sunlight hours. My current home has East/West windows. I’d love to grow pretty much anything, since my 3 kids eat like small horses. We especially love strawberries and blueberries. I know that strawberries can do very well ina window farm, but I haven’t seen anything on the site about blueberries. I’d be willing to try them once I build the system and get good at growing the easy stuff. I’d appreciate any input and feedback. Thanks!
I started my window farm in March and had it running very early April. There were a few cold snaps that let the temp go below freezing but it didn’t affect the window farm at all. I have not yet tried to have it running when its -30celceus though, so I have no idea of the outcome.
Blueberries would be different the strawberries because they grow in a bush. You’ll want either Top Hat or Northsky variety if you can find it because they are small and resilient to temperatures.
I recommend lettuce for any window farm. It grows really well and really fast. Had alot of success with Butterhead variety..
I had to move my tomato plants out of the farm and into buckets because they got too big (mentioned in the original post). They eventually reached 3.5 feet before I moved. Next time I am trying a dwarf variety.
I would actually recommend holding off on building a big farm until after the move. Unless you can get some good ideas to make it modular, I found mine hard to move. I ended up disassembling it completely.
Don;t worry about light too much, just get some supplemental light for darker times of the day. See the guides on this site for how to set that up.