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To: Bigg Red

Yes tomatoes are a bit picky, but it’s likely that your sun room will be fine for growing them. I don’t remember the exact night time temp, but I think that anything below 50 degrees is too cool for them to grow. Plants grow at night when it is dark, after they have drunk in the sunshine during the day.

I generally do not take great care with these branches that I take indoors, because I chop off so many that I am bound to loose some and keep others. You can use a rooting compound to help the process, but I have had some success with just sticking them in dirt. I do this for the flowering as well as the ones with green tomatoes.

Tomatoes have the capacity to root at each joint where there are leaves. I just snip off the branches about 2ft long. Strip off the bottom leaves and stick them in a pot of soil about 18” tall and keep them watered, but not so soaked that they rot instead of making roots. Try to get as many joints under the soil as possible. You can even lay them down in a long rectangular planter.

You can put them in a container of water, if you want to be sure that there are roots before you plant in soil. For the cherry tomatoes, I just leave very few leaves and put them in small 6”-10” pots.

The flowers can be pollinated by simply flipping them as you pass by, or using a paint brush. As the days get shorter, I supplement the natural light with a full spectrum grow light till around eight pm-just like our summer time sunlight. Again, the dark is also needed, so don’t leave the lights on all night, thinking that more is better.

Feed them with some liquid nutrient now and then, as well as some slow release granules. They will grow slower than they do in the summer, but I can usually keep enough going to have a couple of cherry tomatoes with my salad or breakfast omelet a few times per week.

Also consider growing peppers. I just dig up the smaller ones and put them in herb-sized pots. After they recover from transplant shock, they will bloom and produce all winter with no worry about pollination.

I have even had success growing lemons on a dwarf tree. I keep it small, so I only allow about 6 lemons to mature, but the blooms are so fragrant that it is a great plant to have for that alone.

I also grow spinach and leaf lettuce and herbs indoors. Give it a try. Whatever you get is better than paying for pesticide laden produce from the store.


113 posted on 10/07/2013 12:24:22 PM PDT by greeneyes (Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)
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To: greeneyes

Thank you so much for your wonderful, helpful response. I will definitely try this.

God bless.


116 posted on 10/07/2013 1:10:44 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Let me hear what God the LORD will speak. -Ps85)
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