Description
Introducing our delightful “Bucket Garden – Tomato & Basil“! This charming product combines the joy of gardening with the satisfaction of cooking fresh ingredients straight from your own home.
Each bucket is carefully curated to include 2 “Brown Berry” tomato seedlings, known for their sweet, rich flavor and compact size, perfect for container gardening. Alongside these vibrant tomato plants, you’ll find 2 “Lettuce Leaf” Basil seedlings, prized for their large, crinkled leaves bursting with aromatic flavor, and 2 “Rosie” Basil seedlings, adding a delightful touch of sweetness to your culinary creations.
Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just beginning your green journey, this Bucket Garden is the ideal companion for cultivating a bountiful harvest right in your own home. Imagine plucking ripe, juicy tomatoes and fragrant basil leaves straight from your bucket to enhance your favorite dishes with the freshest flavors imaginable.
Not only does the Bucket Garden offer the joy of growing your own produce, but it also makes for a thoughtful and unique gift for the cooking enthusiast in your life. Whether it’s for a birthday, a housewarming, or just to show someone you care, this charming ensemble is sure to bring smiles and delicious meals for seasons to come.
Experience the satisfaction of growing and cooking with our “Bucket Garden – Tomato & Basil” and embark on a journey of flavor and freshness right at your fingertips.
Renowned for its popularity and productivity, this Lettuce Leaf Basil variety boasts large, crinkled leaves in a vibrant shade of green, exuding a delightful aroma. Perfect for enhancing the flavors of salads, pestos, pizzas, and sandwiches.
Rosie Basil stands out as a robust plant, maintaining its deep color better than any other purple basil variety. It offers exceptional flavor and impressive productivity, showcasing tall purple stalks and charming lavender flowers that add visual appeal to any garden. While occasional green plants may appear, this is a natural occurrence due to the variability inherent in open-pollinated seeds. Green seedlings can be removed at the early stage, yet they still yield excellent basil flavor.
- Exposure: Full Sun
- Growing: Use any rich, loose, well-drained soil. Once plants are 15cm (6″) tall, pinch out the growing tips to encourage really bushy growth prior to harvest. Watch for signs of flower buds forming in mid-summer, and pinch these off to promote more foliage.
- Harvest: Frequent harvesting will prolong the life of the plant. Basil leaves have the best flavor just before the plant flowers, and if you plan to preserve some of your basil or make a big batch of pesto, this is the best time to harvest. Flowering can be delayed by pinching or clipping off new flower buds.Tear basil rather than chop with a knife because chopping tends to bruise the leaves. Add basil to food just before serving to get the full aroma and effect. Cooking for any length tends to make the minty side of basil come to the forefront.Basil is best fresh but can be preserved by drying or by freezing. To freeze, tear the leaves into small pieces and freeze small batches of them, with water, in ice cube trays. Once frozen, the cubes can be saved in zip-lock-type bags and labeled for later use. This will preserve the fresh flavor of basil for up to four months.
Tomato “Brown Berry” – Delightfully succulent with a sweet yet slightly tart flavor profile, this European cocktail tomato boasts a distinctive brown hue, offering complexity to its taste. Rest assured, it’s entirely natural without any genetic modification, embodying a uniquely delicious appeal with its subtle brown tones.
How To Grow
For optimal growth, tomato plants thrive in well-drained and fertile soil that is enriched with organic matter. Fertile clays and loams are particularly beneficial, as they yield higher crop quantities. However, lighter soils that offer quick drainage and warmth can provide earlier harvests. Tomato plants have a certain tolerance for slightly acidic soils, yet they exhibit their most productive growth when the soil pH ranges from 6.0 to 6.8.
Being heavy feeders, tomatoes require regular fertilization with an organic blend that is abundant in phosphorus and potassium, while also providing a moderate amount of nitrogen.
To flourish, tomatoes necessitate a minimum of 8 hours of direct sunlight daily, although increased exposure to sunlight will promote faster development. If feasible, consider cultivating them on a gentle slope with southern or southeastern exposure. Tomatoes originated in tropical regions and have higher light requirements compared to other common garden vegetables.
In favorable growing conditions, staked and pruned tomato plants can reach heights exceeding 6 feet, but they can also be trained to have narrower spreads. In cases where space is limited, opting for smaller determinate varieties is recommended.
Pruning and Maintenance
To promote optimal growth and structure, it is recommended to prune tomato plants down to one or two vigorous stems. This can be achieved by carefully snapping off any “suckers,” which are the stems that emerge from the point where leaf stems meet the main stem. Ideally, these suckers should be removed when they reach a length of 2 to 4 inches.
To support the remaining stems, it is advisable to tie them to stakes using soft string, twine, or cloth. The tying technique involves creating a figure-8 shape, with one loop encompassing the stem and the other loop securing it to the stake. This method allows the stem to expand and grow without being constricted. Begin tying the stems to the stakes approximately 8 to 12 inches above the ground, and continue tying at similar intervals as the plant continues to grow.
Alternatively, instead of using individual stakes, you can opt to grow multiple tomato plants in a row, with heavy-duty stakes or posts spaced approximately 4 feet apart. Weaving twine in and out around the posts and plants provides additional support and structure for the plants as they grow.
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