Let's Talk Tomatoes...

Most of my tomatoes look like this first picture. Healthy and with green tomatoes. I have several plants that are less than perfect. They have been fruitful, multiplied and now are getting older. Their leaves are yellowing or turning brown.

We have over 50 tomato plants in our garden. All kinds, shapes, colors and sizes. Some are determinate and some are indeterminate.  This also determines how long the tomatoes will produce. 

I'll be the first to admit that I'm still a novice when it comes to gardening. I know what I know and what I don't know I try to learn.  When plants have given their all and the some lower leaves are starting to yellow, I prune them. Prune the plant. Get rid of the dead leaves. Free it up to concentrate on new growth. I'm not talking about pruning suckers. I'm talking about the dead leaves in the undergrowth of the plant. 

Another thing to do is to give it extra food. The fertilizer strip has been working, but these plants grow so big and fast, that they may need a little extra food to energize themselves and keep producing. Epsom salts and/or liquid fertilizer might help. You can put liquid fertilizer or fish emulsion down the watering tube or in the watering system if you have one. 

The third option is...pull the plant. If it's obvious that the plant has stopped producing, it's time to do the hard thing. Free up the box for fall planting. Pull up the old plants, take off the plastic, add dolomite, more potting mix to make a crown on top of the box, new strip of fertilizer and new plastic. Ready for the next growing season.
The first one has given us a lot of tomatoes, but there are no more tomatoes being produced.  It is time to pull the plant. 

 These tomato plants in the pictures below have some yellowing and brown leaves, but are still producing a good amount of tomatoes. I'll try to keep the yellowing and dead leaves picked and keep them going a while longer.










 

The tomatoes is this picture above were about 7 feet tall until a recent rain. The cages collapsed and the plants are sprawling. It is easier to get to some of the tomatoes that I could not reach before, but now I have a new area that will be harder to reach. Too many tomatoes. It's a good problem to have. :)

Hello, This is Justin from KWTV News 9..

We can not thank Brian and Brent enough for doing a story in the Journal Record about Garden Anywhere Box. From that article, we were contacted by Kent Myers from The Verdict and also by Justin Dougherty from KWTV News 9.

We invite people to come out to see our garden if they want to make the drive, so getting a phone call to do so was not unusual. Larry answered the ring, talked for a few minutes and hung up. I asked who called. Larry said, "That was Justin Dougherty from News 9. He read about us in the Journal Record and wants to come out and do a story about Garden Anywhere Box." (OMGoodness!!!)  "When", I asked. "Now," said Larry. WHAT!!!

It's about a 30 minute drive from OKC to where we live. We excitedly waited while Justin made the drive out to our home. We took him around to our back deck to see our garden. It was July 24 and about 100 degrees. (yippee).

Justin got his camera set up and told Larry that he "just wanted to talk for a few minutes". Justin asked questions and Larry began to talk. I love that Justin was able to put Larry right at ease, while filming the whole time.

They visited for about 10 minutes. I was filming the interview with my phone...until I ran out of memory. At this point I dashed...really, I dashed... into the house to retrieve my camera and continue filming. The interview lasted about 15 minutes.  I don't think I missed too much. We all remarked how hot is was out on the back deck. We concluded the interview, thanked Justin, gave him some tomatoes and got a picture with him before he left. He said to look for our spot on the 5:00 news. "One minute on television, forever on the internet," Justin said.

Here is the link to our minute of fame. I have the full interview to post to our you tube page if I can just figure out how to do it.

The Verdict...

After the article appeared in the Journal Record, Larry got a phone call from a man named Kent Myers. Mr. Myers left a voice mail saying that he'd read about us in the paper and wondered if Larry was the same Larry Pierce that he'd played baseball with at Southeast High School back in the day and also the inventor of Garden Anywhere Box. Kent told Larry that he had a television show called, "The Verdict", co-hosted with OKC Mayor, Mick Cornett and would like to talk to Larry about being on the show. (OMGoodness!!!)

Well... Larry was involved with basketball and graduated from Choctaw High School. He never attended SE and was not the same Larry that Kent knew.  He decided to call back anyway. :)

Larry is now scheduled to tape an interview on, The Verdict in August which will air sometime in September. Stay tuned for details about time and channel. 

Journal Record Article

We would like to thank Brian and Brent at the Journal Record for writing an article about Garden Anywhere Box. Brian spoke with Larry and Brent came out and took pictures of our garden.

From the Journal Record, July 7, 2014

NEWALLA – Larry Pierce said his Garden Anywhere Box is ready to go anywhere, particularly developing nations where agricultural resources are so difficult to come by. 

“Whether it be the Southwest here in the United States with our drought, or an apartment building where you don’t have much space, or some other country where they’re just struggling to get by, I think this could make a real difference,” the Newalla businessman said.

“We’re trying to think big and go global as a business, but we’d also like to help out people who can’t grow their own food,” he said. “It’s more than just a business.”

Larry and Letitia Pierce had been gardening in boxes for about seven years and have utilized family, friends and neighbors, setting up gardens for them as well. Their efforts have served the same function as market research and product beta testing before the couple decided to make a run at entrepreneurship with Garden Anywhere Box, or GAB.

“Refining the watering system is what prompted us to take it to the commercial level,” Larry Pierce said. “It’s proven itself in some of the harshest Oklahoma summer conditions, much better than any other watering system being used.”

Twenty-eight boxes hooked up to our watering system and a rain barrel. No weeding. and no wasted water. 

The foundation of the GAB is an 18-gallon, plastic box storage container or tote, which the Pierces modify with a few holes, tubing and horizontal dividers.

A 4.5-gallon reservoir in the bottom of the box holds water brought in by a standard garden hose, and it is self-regulated by a floater assembly to maintain a minimum level without overflow waste. The GAB is not a hydroponic garden because it uses potting mix as the growing medium, he said. It is also not an aquaponics system, which involves fish, although Larry Pierce said it’s possible to connect a rain barrel with fish to provide additional fertilizer.

Because the growing system has so little exposure to the outside environment – except for plant leaves, which need oxygen and sunlight for photosynthesis – the risk of weed contamination is greatly reduced and the potting soil mix can be used for years, he said.

Several boxes can be connected in series like train boxcars to support a large gardening operation. The Pierces have several dozen running at the same time.

The Pierces haven’t made a big advertising push yet, relying on word-of-mouth marketing. They’ve started looking for more opportunities for exposure, such as a recent Oklahoma Venture Forum event at the Governor’s Mansion. Last year GAB won an award for most unique local product at the State Fair.

Seed venture funding would help the company reach a much wider audience and allow the Pierces to control their manufacturing – the boxes they use are all blue now because their supplier sources are limited, but they’d like to offer more colors. The Pierces said they’re working with a friend to write up a formal business plan.

“This has been a challenge for us because we’re new to business,” Larry Pierce said. “We’ve always worked for other people. So we’re still not exactly sure about what’s all involved in taking this to the next level. … We’ve been working on it slowly, but I think we’re ready.”

You can garden in a box.
You can garden in your socks.
You can garden here...or there.
You can GARDEN ANYWHERE!

Is It Too Late to Garden?

Lately, people have been asking us, "Is it too late to garden?" Our answer is, "No, not in a Garden Anywhere Box."  The picture above is of our pool deck garden. We planted on June 1, 2014 and this is the growth in just three weeks. We harvested until the freeze in November and after. Because GAB is portable, we moved some of our plants inside our greenhouse and continued to garden all winter. You can garden year 'round bringing your plants inside when the weather turns cold. 



You have to look at gardening in a GAB differently than gardening in the ground. Each box is a mini-garden without the tilling or weeding. GAB does not depend on whether the ground is frozen. It does not depend on too much or too little rain.

Because Garden Anywhere Box is portable, you can bring your garden inside in the winter or if there is a threat of bad weather. If you have a greenhouse or a warm, sunny spot in your home, you can garden year 'round. If you do not have a greenhouse, a sunny spot or do not want to bring in your GABs, you can at least garden three seasons.

You can start your garden in the winter inside by planting seeds. We have shelves and florescent lighting in our laundry room that act as our inside greenhouse. This is a really fun way to "garden" in the winter when it's too cold outside. We choose the plants that we want to grow... and there are many.

Get the potting mix that is made for starting seeds and get to work. We grow heirloom seeds, mostly from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. We've had good luck with germination and harvest from Baker Creek. There are other heirloom seed companies, though, so look around.

So...start your seeds indoors in January or February. Redress your boxes on a nice day. Pull up the dead plants. Remove the plastic and scrape off the fertilizer.  Add 2 cups of dolomite to the potting mix. Add a bit more potting mix to replace what came up with the roots. Make a crown with the potting mix like you did when first planting your boxes. Add the 1 cup strip of fertilizer down the middle and add new plastic. Secure the lid and screws and you are ready to garden.

Depending on the weather, you can start planting some cool weather crops like broccoli, cabbage, kale, chard, lettuce, carrots, onions, peas, radishes,spinach and beets. If the weather takes an unexpected turn, you can cover your boxes with a "trash bag" green house.  Put some dowel rods in the corners of the box to make a little tent and keep the plastic off of the plants. If it gets really cold and you've already planted, you can bring your garden inside overnight to protect it from a freeze. 

April, 2014  This is a cabbage that my cousins,
Lynda and Jerry grew. 

For a summer garden, you might need to redress your box depending on what you grew in the spring and how heavy a feeder it was. Redressing is easy and you should have the hang of it by now. (Dolomite, fertilizer, plastic)

Time for a summer garden and all of the yummy veggies that summer brings. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, okra, etc.

Watch your plants for bugs. The spring does not have many bugs except for cabbage worms, possibly, but summer brings a host of bugs to the garden. 

You can use a mix of 1 t. olive oil, 1 t Dawn dish soap to a quart spray bottle of water to kill squash bugs. About 10 drops of lemon oil added to that will kill aphids.  If you see grasshoppers, shew them away. If it gets really bad, try covering your plants with netting to protect them. If you see a big, fat green worm on your tomatoes, pick it off. It is a tomato horn worm. If you are diligent and check your plants, hopefully, you can keep most bugs at bay. 

July 2, 2014

Trim off dead and yellowing leaves. That opens your plants up to more light and lets the younger leaves take over. If you have plants that do die, don't despair. It happens in the best of gardens. Just pull up the offending plants and replant. Don't waste the space with plants that are not producing. This is true for plants that are not dead, but are not producing like you would like. GAB real estate is too valuable to waste.

After your summer bounty, it's time to plant your garden for fall. Pumpkins, winter squash, cabbage, chard and other crops that you might have grown in the spring would be appropriate. You will need to redress your box in order to feed your hungry plants for the fall. The good news is cooler temps and fewer bugs. 

March 5, 2015

See how easy it can be to garden in a GAB. No weeding. Self-watering. Portable. You get the unique Garden Anywhere Box watering system and three boxes for $199. That is a great deal. We are using the same boxes that we started with eight years ago. The boxes that we sell are a better quality that what we actually use. If you divide the cost of a Starter Kit plus potting mix by eight years, that comes out to about $30 a year for a garden that you don't have to weed and is self-watering.

To  be able to grow your own (organic) produce year 'round and to know what, if any, pesticides are on or in your food...priceless. Three GABs will give you plenty of room to grow. You can make your garden as big as you want by adding a box and a tube. 






Garden  Anywhere Box makes a perfect "Anytime" gift. Christmas, Birthdays, Weddings, Mother's Day.  
Garden Anywhere Box...turning brown thumbs green.