The Heirlooms are coming!

Banana tree in my yard

5-gallon hangers.

My experiment had been successful -- I could actually grow things!  And somewhat successfully, might I add.  Not only was I eating fresh tomatoes and eggplant, but also I gained some major street cred with the farmers I worked with.  The hanging tomatoes blew their minds.  It was just absolutely wild that this crazy gringo came in and grew tomatoes upside-down.  I was having fun, and it gave me yet another small talk topic.

My hanging tomato plants were doing great, and I was eating tomatoes daily.  The eggplant was doing pretty well also -- I ate a few and gave the rest away (to be honest I’m not the biggest fan of eggplant).   The celery in the top of the hanging 5-gallon was doing all right, but I had thoughts of ripping it out.  After all, I just planted it up there to have something up there.

Celery

“Winter” was finishing up, so the rain was finally coming to a stop.  I was happy to see it go; 6 months of daily downpour takes it’s toll on both man and plant.  I had devised a system to control the amount of water getting to my hanging tomatoes, so they were doing well, but the other plants in regular planters were hurting.  And for me, well, I was sick of the constant mold on everything I owned (fun side fact: at one time even my computer grew mold).  The new lack of rain meant I had to water my plants daily, but it allowed for more adequate growing conditions.

The tomatoes that you can find here in El Salvador are typically a small oblong variety, about the size of a Roma tomato.  I don’t know what they actually are, but the people call them “Cherry” (they even say it in English).  Sometimes you can find different varieties, but they all pretty much taste the same, and are somewhat bland.

Don Erasmo's Greenhouse.

I was happy to be eating my own tomatoes, but I decided that it was time to change things up a little.  I wanted to plant a tomato that was different – partially because I wanted to continue being the crazy gringo, and partially out of desire to eat a different tomato.  After some research I found some seeds – Black Krim heirloom tomato to be exact.  They are a large dark variety originally from Ukraine/Russia, sure to astonish people with their color and hopefully with their taste too.  Instead of battling with germinating the seeds myself, I asked my friend Don Erasmo to help me out.  As a result of a previous Peace Corps Volunteer’s hard work and grant writing skills, Don Erasmo had acquired a small greenhouse and has successfully been growing various plants (mainly tomato, green pepper, and papaya) since.  He told me he would give me a hand and we could germinate the seeds in his greenhouse.  At the same time we germinated a packet of cilantro seeds.

Don Erasmo and his grandson planting seeds.

The soil where I live is a very acidic clay, which is not ideal for tomatoes.  The first time I planted one of my friends hauled me in some soil from where he lives, which was a very dark topsoil.  With a strong addition of bokashi compost it worked perfectly.  This time I tried to find similar soil, but unfortunately I was unable to.  Instead, with the help of a volunteer friend, I mixed some clay from here with sand, lime, and compost in hopes of creating a mixture to my plants' liking.

After around 20 days of Don Erasmo tentatively caring for my plants (he lives about 40 minutes from me), he handed over the seedlings.  I gave half to him, and took the other half home.   I planted 4 in planters (homemade from old oil jugs), and the rest in tentative (also homemade) small planters.  I gently pulled out the celery from the 5-gallon and transplanted it straight to the ground, making room for my cilantro.

Black Krim Tomatoes.

Cilantro.

After a week or so, all the plants were doing great, but I had a small problem.  I was going to the States for 3 weeks.  I transplanted the remaining heirlooms directly into the ground, and began searching for somebody to water my plants while I was gone.  I asked a friend to come by daily to water my plants, and in return I promised him I would bring him back something special from the US.  I showed him what I needed him to do, gave one final fertilizer and pesticide application, and I was off.

Cilantro up top.

Tomatoes in planters, with bamboo guides.