Balconytomato™ Blowing the budget

So I blew the budget a bit and replanted 2 of the tomatoes in new pots

2 New pots $2(£1)
1 20 liter Bag of "organic" soil $0.99(50p)
2 Foam plates $0.20(10p)

This crappy picture is of three of the tomatoes now lined up on the back balcony where there is a lot more hours of light a day, 2 were replanted yesterday, you can see by comparing the size of the last pictures they are growing already woohoo.


In this picture the front tomato is at the top amongst all the flower pots I planted yesterday, the giant geranium is in the foreground, yes the deck is dirty and has to be swept when the rain is over.

Amazing Balconytomato™

Ok clearly bonsai is going to take years and probably end in heartbreak so I started another project that might bring some quicker satisfaction(or disappointment) to me and the blog, hope Petersan doesn't mind. I am keeping the spirit of the bonsai and making it cheap and experimental.

Goal: grow a sweet sweet tomato, the fruit of love, a divine tomato buddha himself would enjoy snacking on. This is the stuff dreams are made of.
Time: 7:30am Thursday May 22nd, partly cloudy, 15c
Location: My balcony
Cost: $2.10

Materials
1 flat of 9 'Pink Girl' tomato plants $2(£1)
2 plastic bags(previously enjoyed, one owner)
1 flower pot left over from last year
1 pot my bonsai came in
1 bunch of soil, some left over, some from a bag i was given
1 foam plate $0.10(5p)

Here is the flat of Pink Girl tomatoes from Reno Depot


Here is 3 potted on the front balcony, 1 will be moved to the back if the other back one survives


Here is one potted on the back balcony, it gets very hot on the back so there is a foam plate under the pot. A male blackbird who was guarding a nest across the yard protested loudly to me about putting the pot there, I was not deterred.

Wiring

Ok here's a rather poor photo of my attempt at wiring

Picture Update.

How my bonsai currently looks:-

It's Aliiiiiiiive!!!

Normally I wouldn't bother posting these images, but as they show a growth spurt here they are!

Humidified!!!

After the drying out scare I decided to try and help the survival of the tree by :-

1. checking the soil to make sure it's not dried out
2. regular branch checks to remove dead branches
3. I made a humidification tray

So how did I do it? I took one catering plastic tray, I half filled it with large-ish fishtank gravel I had laying around added water to the level of the gravel then placed the tree on it's tray on top of the gravel.

You can't see from the images but there is a lot of new buds appearing on the tree which is a good sign  of life, and there has been some major hacking of dead branches to help promote growth.

Emergency on planet Bonsai

OK been a while since I last posted (I'm surprised michaelsan hasn't whined at me as I whined at him to blog with me on this project lol), so a quick update of where I've learned stuff. Don't let the soil dry out! OMG I was so busy concentrating on the issues higher in the tree I forgot the basics of everything that everything that goes up is supported at the bottom! I'd managed to let the soil dry out completely so having been paying attention to the leafs I noticed they were drying out which lead to a panic of thinking I'd killed it (again).

I regain some composure and decided to water the bonsai, I placed the tree in a bowl and filled the bowl with water until it was half way up the trees' pot and left it for what felt like a few hours (though in truth it was probably only one) until the top soil was damp to the touch, I then took the tree from the bowl and left it on a side to drain off the excess water before returning it to it's place of pride.