welcome to the rusted garden this is the
fourth video in growing a cherry tomato
from start to finish this is the
midnight snack from all-america
selections and it's been about six weeks
since the last video where we really
started the spraying pruned it up tied
it up to the steak and let it go six
weeks later it is over seven feet tall
this is the whole length of it it's
almost to the top of that steak and it's
filled with maybe hundreds of tomatoes
and that dark purple that you see on the
tops is the anthocyanins what turns
purple when sunlight hits it and as you
come down further you see the larger
Tomatoes are darker the more sudden they
get the darker they get and down towards
the bottom you can see the beautiful
color of the tomatoes that are ready and
we'll do a harvest and I'll show you
what they look like now the trick with
these Tomatoes is they're beautiful but
they're slow to mature so when they turn
this color like you look right in here
they look right but you want them to go
a little bit further like seven or ten
days past where you might think they're
ready to pick because at that point to
get a whole lot sweeter and I find
that's just one of the things that seem
to happen with the indigo variety
tomatoes that have the anthocyanin there
when they turn red let them go another
seven to ten days and they're that much
sweeter today we're going to talk about
the spraying continued spraying right on
here these little spots
that's leaf spot that came in when my
temperatures or my climate changed here
we were getting more rain a little bit
cooler weather will talk about epsom
salts and the feedings and just what do
i do from mid-august to keep this plant
going and producing so that you know
this will keep going until the frost
comes later in October
now the feeding for this cherry tomato
has really been every 10 to 14 days a
water-soluble fertilizer and a soluble
fertilizer water soluble fertilizer is
an N P and K or the nutrients your plant
can absorb immediately so they're
immediately available to your plant that
can use them and this plant has pretty
much been getting again every ten to
fourteen days either worm compost tea or
it was getting the fish
fertilizer the fish emulsion which is a
5-1-1 fertilizer nitrogen phosphorus and
potassium 5 1 1 now come mid-july I give
my plants a little bit of a boost and
what I gave them was some all-purpose
fertilizer five five five and it's just
basically a side dressing and I do this
again come May to August when a lot of
production has been going on so I've
already done this once which was not in
the video but somewhere in mid July when
the plant is really producing flowers
and getting going so I take about that's
one tablespoon one tablespoon spread it
around the base of the plant stay about
four inches away from there but this was
an organic fertilizer you can't really
damage your plant with it so about two
tablespoons around the base of the plant
about four inches out and just scratch
it into the surface this is an insoluble
fertilizer so the soil biology is going
to have to break it down and this will
just provide it some nice food over the
next four to six weeks now at full
production mid-august this tomato plant
has probably almost 100 tomatoes on
there I'm going to give it some Epsom
salt now there's a lot of myths about
how great this is for your plants it
helps it's like giving it a vitamin but
you don't need to use this weekly you
don't need to use this every every month
one or two times a year is perfectly
fine don't overuse the Epsom salt all
you're giving your plant is magnesium
and sulfur in this and how I use it is
this is a two gallon container so it's
one tablespoon per one gallon of water
you could use two tablespoons if you
want but you don't really need that much
so in here I put in two tablespoons of
the Epsom salt and today instead of the
organic fertilizers I'm going to use the
chemical fertilizer which I know does
freak people out but I always want to
stress the chemical fertilizers don't
harm your plant they don't harm you
overuse and abuse of these fertilizers
solely can damage your soil and probably
will damage your soil but if you're
putting in compost you're using organic
fertilizers come mid-august when my
plants are really producing I like to
give them the chemical fertilizer at
have strength this is a 15 30 15 NPK
that's too much do a quarter strength or
a half strength so this is two gallons
instead of putting in two tablespoons
I'm just putting in one so it's about
half strength you could go a little bit
lower and you're not going to be able to
see this but it just covers all the
macro micronutrients and I like to do
that for my plants in mid-august because
now this plant is set up to finish
growing through the rest of its its time
really it'll go through a late September
when the start cold starts coming in and
it starts dying off how do I do it two
gallons just water it in just like that
and I'll probably put in a full gallon
of water we'll just do this as I'm
talking wet the insoluble fertilizer you
put down as a side dressing and
scratched into the surface and then just
soak down this whole area and that's
going to be one gallon worth of water in
there and that's going to be enough to
set this tomato plant up for the rest of
its life
Maryland zone 7 sometime towards the end
of September
not usually middle of October we get a
frost and that will kill this plant off
alright let's talk about the spraying
and this spot pattern right on here is
leaf spot there's no yellow halo around
these dots so it's getting really I'm
getting it under a bit of control when
you have these spots and then you have
yellow halos around them it means it's
active but let me show you the spray I
use a baking soda spray because I'm
going to be eating a lot of these cherry
tomatoes now and baking soda is
perfectly fine to you know spray and
even the same day let me show you how to
make that spray so this is a baking soda
spray and the first thing I want to
stress is anytime you're trying a new
spray in your garden if it comes for me
anybody anything you read even products
you buy in the store test spray that
means spray a couple of branches a
couple of leaves wait 48 hours and look
for damage because you can damage a
whole garden by using a spray that works
for mostly everybody else but for
whatever reason in your area it damages
your plant so always test spray so this
is baking soda I'm using one tablespoon
and a gallon of water that hissing you
hear is because the seal
here isn't sealing tightly so some air
is coming out of this from the air
pressure one tablespoon per gallon of
water you can use up to two tablespoons
of baking soda but here's kind of the
kicker that's really important in May
early June April when it's colder and
cooler I can use two tablespoons in a
gallon of water all my tomato plants
that's when leaf spot normally rolls
into my area you just happen to come
back because of this crazy weather we've
been having but come late June July and
August when the heat is here if I use
two tablespoons in here it damages my
leaves so I'm using one tablespoon
really really important I want to stress
that you understand that when you're
using sprays when the temperatures are
cooler sometimes you can have a greater
concentration of baking soda in there or
the sprays when it gets warmer you have
to really be careful because as soon as
the temperatures get over 90 in the
direct light you can damage your your
plants with spray so spray in the early
morning or the later evening come July
August are the hot times year month
alright so that was a talk about safety
so baking soda 1 tablespoon 1 gallon of
water it's all set up
and again I've shown you this before so
I'll just show it to you real quick is
Ellen here is the leaf spot these spots
on the leaves and when it's really
active you have the brown spots and
halos around the plant but you just want
to get under there and soak the tops of
the leaves the end the sides of the
leaves you can spray this baking soda is
not going to hurt you we eat that and go
all the way through and make sure you
get the undersides of your plants any
leaves that look bad I'll do that after
this video is I'll come and I'll remove
but I'd like to spray first before I
remove them I'd like to coat everything
and that's all you really do that baking
soda will slow down and sometimes stop
leaf spots leaf spot early blights a
little more difficult I've been using a
serenade for that but I'm switching over
now to the baking soda seems like the
early blight is a little bit less
prevalent now my garden that comes with
climate change all right so let's pick
some of these cherry tomatoes and again
you can see the tops are really purple
that's from the anthocyanin that's the
same pigment in blueberries it's very
good for you when the Sun hits these
Tomatoes they turn purple so the Sun
comes in here the tops are purple the
bottoms are our green and actually you
can almost make a tattoo if you put like
something on here and turned it towards
the Sun everything will turn purple
except for whatever you have under the
piece of tape or something like that
so when you pick these you want them to
be really juicy and when some of them
start to split that's the time these are
nice deep red when you press them they
really give they're not hard in any way
and that's what you definitely want
that's the point of best flavor when you
press and your thumb will go in there
and leave it in and it's nice and
rubbery really and look at just the
color is beautiful now when you come up
to this one you can see that it's more
orange and purple just give these time
even though they look great and you want
to eat them let's see if we have one in
here yeah the two up here give them that
extra seven days to mature so that when
you press on them you're some really
indents in there and that's when they're
there's their sweetest so let's take a
look at the tomato and just to be clear
this is an all-america selections winner
all-america selections org is a
nonprofit organization that does yearly
seed trials to find us the best new
vegetables and flowers to market they
don't sell these seeds they only declare
the winners and I think I said that
these tomatoes were theirs they're not
they declared midnight snack
a winning tomato for last year and if
you go to all-america selection or you
can find seed companies that sell these
seeds so here we are
mid-august and again I want to stress
when you press on these they should give
nicely and when you cut them open
there's just absolutely beautiful nice
red color all the way through the dark
shoulders from the anthocyanin
this is when they're the most sweetest
when you let them stay on the vine just
a little bit longer and really from now
over the next you know two to four weeks
I'll be getting a ton of cherry tomatoes
and we'll do a closing video on this
series instead of being six parts it's
going to be five I hope you enjoyed this
video please check out my sea chap at
WWDC garden calm thanks