The Matter of 'Maters

My hubby is...well...obsessed with growing tomatoes.  I am not complaining.  Love a fresh tomato off the vine in the summer.
If you look back at my posts close to the beginning you'll find that humorous post of our first 'crop' of 'tomato'. Claude pulled the tractor and trailer around and we took photos of the harvest of one lone tomato in his trailer. I'm still grinning at old people doing this.

Last year Claude grew a particularly large tomato 'tree' with cherry tomatoes on it in the Bourbon barrel on our lower deck. We were amazed at the size of that plant/tree.

This year I happened to run into a sale on the Topsy-Turvy tomato planters. I bought two for Claude and he has them hanging off the bottom of our upper deck. They are growing very well.

Then Claude purchased three of the same kind of tomato plant, one for each of the Bourbon barrels we have on the lower deck. Mind you they are all the same kind of tomato plant, all purchased and planted the same day. Please note the disparity in size already.

Our plant on the left of the picture is noticeably larger than the two in the center and the right of the picture. Once again that particular Bourbon barrel is growing an unusually large tomato plant. Hmmm...wonder why that is???

One night last week as I walked past the windows in the family room that look out on the back yard I noted something. If you look carefully above the trellis on the patio and along the bottom edge of the upper deck to the bay window, you will see three little lights. Claude installed these some time ago. They are solar powered and they stay on all night, or at least until their battery runs down. They shine on that bottom Bourbon barrel all night long. My theory is that particular plant is growing like it would in Alaska with their 22 hours of daylight in the summer.  All that light and the plants just keep on growing, and growing and growing. I'm a thinkin' that is what our solar lights are doing for the tomato plants in that barrel.

There you have it...my not-so-scientific reasoning. Just plain old common sense. So if you want huge vegetable plants, put them in a Bourbon barrel under a solar light that stays on all night...or move to Alaska!!