Tomato!

[Ironbeaver]

I just planted some tomato seeds for this year.... what with those outrageous grocery store prices. Maybe I'll do one up as a companion planting.

 

[GrimLore]

Great to see

Hey! When are you expecting the website store to be up and running? Been checking....

Grimmy

 

[GailC]

I just planted some tomato seeds for this year.... what with those outrageous grocery store prices. Maybe I'll do one up as a companion planting.

Have you seen the current tomatoes? The plants are indeterminate and might be hard to wrangle into submission but the fruits are tiny, about 1/2" across and they are heavy producers. Not very tasty though. Then there are the fuzzy tomatoes, fuzzy wuzzy is really beautiful with a fantastic colored fruit.
I can't find any pictures that truly shows the silvery blue fuzzy foliage, I'm growing one just for decoration this year.

 

[Ironbeaver]

The seeds I got are the Tiny Tim variety, which are sweet/ edible. Anything decorative would be secondary.

 

[bumblebee]

I had a tomato plant that lasted 3 years once. In the ground. It quit making tomatoes in the heat of the summer and the middle of the winter.
Otherwise it just grew and grew. It finally died from neglect, I guess. I've often wondered how long it might have lived if I actually paid attention to it.
Tommy Toes, if I remember correctly.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@M. Frary - while bonsai is generally thought of as requiring a true wood producing tree, it is not an absolute. Kusamono is considered Bonsai. Kusamono is originally defined as a grass plantinting. The more generic term Kusamono includes ''accent plants'' of all types, woody, herbaceous, grasses & mosses. Kusamono are usually displayed with trees. Shitakusa are kusamono representing forest underplantings, intended to be shown with / supporting a display with bonsai trees. Sanyasou are kusamono intended to be displayed on their own artistic merits, as the focal point of the display. As such Sanyasou are a style of Bonsai.

Key to Bonsai, Kusamono and Sanyasou is artistic content. They are all plants in pots until they present an artistic image. All these off beat plants that are not typical species used for bonsai have traits that make them difficult to create the image needed for bonsai. Rosemary can make excellent bonsai, tomatoes & peppers not so much. No reason not to try, but if you want an excellent bonsai, start with a tree that could potentially be an excellent bonsai.

but I like many others have my pet plants, the are my whimsy, and I encourage whimsy.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

so the short version - yeah for goofing around with bonsai techniques on everything from tomatoes to bonsai kitties.

 

[aml1014]

I enjoy my chili. Just for the hell of it.

Aaron

 

[M. Frary]

@M. Frary - while bonsai is generally thought of as requiring a true wood producing tree, it is not an absolute. Kusamono is considered Bonsai. Kusamono is originally defined as a grass plantinting. The more generic term Kusamono includes ''accent plants'' of all types, woody, herbaceous, grasses & mosses. Kusamono are usually displayed with trees. Shitakusa are kusamono representing forest underplantings, intended to be shown with / supporting a display with bonsai trees. Sanyasou are kusamono intended to be displayed on their own artistic merits, as the focal point of the display. As such Sanyasou are a style of Bonsai.

Key to Bonsai, Kusamono and Sanyasou is artistic content. They are all plants in pots until they present an artistic image. All these off beat plants that are not typical species used for bonsai have traits that make them difficult to create the image needed for bonsai. Rosemary can make excellent bonsai, tomatoes & peppers not so much. No reason not to try, but if you want an excellent bonsai, start with a tree that could potentially be an excellent bonsai.

but I like many others have my pet plants, the are my whimsy, and I encourage whimsy.

It's a vegetable Leo.

 

[Nwaite]

Hey calm down! .... we don't need to start calling names.

And FYI frary tomatoes are a fruit. ..

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I'm a big proponent of "EAT YOUR BONSAI"

I have many edibles in pots, training with a vague bonsai idea in mind. Mostly fruits and nuts, but I now have a Moringa oleifera stick in pot, and the leaves are used as a vegetable. I also eat my bamboo shoots.

A lot of mine are fairly young. Some are seedlings started for planting out on the family farm, but a few seedlings will be sidelined to become bonsai.
Citrus
Eugenia
Diospyros virginiana & australoafricana
quince
Phyllostachys atrovaginata & aureosulcata - 2 bamboos for really tasty shoots, esp the atrovaginata.
Vaccinium sp from Bhutan - Himalayan huckleberry
Luma
Moringa
kooboo berry
hazelnuts
Ficus carica 'Chicago Hardy'
chinquapin
chestnut-Amer-Chinese hybrid
Amelianchier (Service berry or Juneberry)
and a bunch I can't remember off the top of my head.

ginkgo - I have a grafted ginkgo, cultivar "Eastern Star" which was selected in China for nut production. Ginkgo nuts are delicious. If you ever spot in the landscape a ginkgo with nuts, locally around middle or end of November, resist the urge to plant every single nut, soak them in water overnight, in a room with a good exhaust fan scrub off the odorous soft outer fleshy coating. Then rinse clean & boil nuts for 30 minutes, or roast as one would do for chestnuts, cool, peel, and eat or add to soup stock. Delicious and mild.

Really, I have nothing against Tomatoes or Peppers, just pointing out that while fun, there are better choices for putting serious energy into for bonsai. On my list above, Chestnuts, & Moringa are definitely inferior choices for bonsai just because of their growth habits. Not impossible, but difficult.

 

[Dalmat]

How about this yamadori cabbage

 

[Geo]

Psssssst.. @Nwaite Dwarf Eggplant.

 

[Nwaite]

Eggplant. ...? That's out of this world... I don't know about that

 

[Geo]

They are great looking,with interesting branches and smaller fruit.They can get fairly large:so take that into account for the container.Closely related to the tomato and a perennial as well.Mine are 2 years old and bearing well.Nice flowers before the fruit, also.

 

[Nwaite]

They are great looking,with interesting branches and smaller fruit.They can get fairly large:so take that into account for the container.Closely related to the tomato and a perennial as well.Mine are 2 years old and bearing well.Nice flowers before the fruit, also.

WOW thanks for the info! I grow alot of Veg in buckets so I'll have to try that out. What type do you use? And do you jus keep clipping it back ones it gets to a particular point?

 

[GroveKeeper]

You could try thai chilis. I have one with with peppers that are only 1/4" and bright red. Plus the leaves and flowers are tiny too.

 

[Geo]

I really don't know the variety.But they are not the long skinny ones.They are oval and a beautiful dark purple when mature.In fact I removed then from a mature eggplant and sowed then in the ground.You can just use the regular sized plants as well.They take pruning back.

 

[Nwaite]

Sounds good. I'm definitely going to give it a try

 

[M. Frary]

And FYI frary tomatoes are a fruit.

Oh yeah! Whoops.
Leo,it's a fruit!