$75 Tomato

The only thing I’ve ever been good at growing has been my toenails. As a little kid, my first gardening attempt involved peas. I netted five pods and ever since I’ve never been a fan of peas. When I attempted tomatoes I lost the battle to cutworms the size of hotdogs. In January, when I was making a salad I sliced open a tomato and found little sprouts. I decided to see what would happen if I planted them.

It started as a simple whim, an experiment in my backyard, kept it simple and inexpensive, after all, condo rules state no fruit bearing plants. Something about attracting rats. If I got caught and had to remove the plants, I didn’t want a lot of money sunk into a few illegal plants.

It began with some dirt taken from beneath my palms and a cottage cheese container. No big investments. Four days after I planted them I took off for two weeks. I stuck the plastic container in one of my ti pots hooked up to a drip irrigation system. I placed the pot in a shady area of my lanai so the sun wouldn’t fry them. The tiny sprouts were not given much chance to survive. When I returned I had two dozen plants about three inches tall. That’s when I got emotionally involved in the experiment. And that cost money.

My nursery of little seedlings needed something larger than a cottage cheese container. And they needed more dirt. My Hilo cousin, an organic fruit and sheep farmer explained dirt was what you get on your clothes. What I needed was soil. I bought two bags soil and a window box size flower container, although I was advised I needed bigger containers. I transplanted the tiny plants expecting to lose some to shock, but all twenty seven seedlings made the first transplant. Surprised me. I knew I had to thin the herd, but like I said I got emotionally attached to the little guys. Pulling some of them up by the roots seemed criminal.


Over the course of the next few weeks they grew to be a foot tall. I needed more dirt and more pots. Cha-ching, cha-ching. I culled some of the plants and transplanted the rest into four more pots. Again, I expected some to die in the process, but all made it. In the culling process, I pulled one plant up and then decided to jam it back into another pot. The next day it lay limp. I continued to water it and it regained its upright posture, although stunted. Eventually it began to grow. In all I kept ten. They grew. I purchased tomato cages. (That was a sight. Traveling home on my scooter with four cages strapped to my basket. Looked pretty much like a scene from Bangkok, minus five other passengers.)


Bugs attacked the leaves. I bought a biological insecticide. Later the leaves started to yellow. I began to feed them Miracle Grow.

The plants are on the west side of the condo. By the afternoon, when they could get direct sun, the clouds have moved in. They are lucky if they get two hours. When I read that tomato plants need 6-8 hours of sunlight I went all out and bought a 120 watt grow light which are damn expensive in Hawaii.





My experiment was a measured success. I harvested my first tomato today. It cost about $75, not counting the cost of the original tomato purchased at the local farmer’s market back in January.