What are some opinions on "Wall-O-Water"s? r

[Quickstrike]

Originally Posted by akeimou

i'm a WOWer. i can take advantage of a warm spell in spring, plant some tomatoes, set up WOWs, and then basically forget about them. no worries about that last blizzard we usually have late in May.

So, do you normally plant your tomatoes outside in early May?

Around what time do you like to sow the seeds?

This will be my first time starting from seed. I usually just buy seedlings in June from a Garden Centre.



Thanks for the help.

hey, Quickstrike, good to see another Calgarian!

i sow seeds indoors middle of March. i take seedlings to the greenhouse middle of April, keeping temps above freezing, and shading from direct sun the first day or two. then i plant some in containers, and in early May i plant the rest outside.

hth,

--meg

[Indyartist]

I've come up with the varieties I'll try in my "Wall-O-Water"s. It looks like I'll only have nine to try this year so I have picked nine different varieties to try. I will also start these same nine varieties in the standard fashion and then compare the results. Here are the nine I'm going to try:
Cherokee Purple
Ceylon
Aunt Gertie's Gold
Black Zebra
Arbuznyi
Lime Green Salad
Azoychka
Black Cherry
I'm starting the seeds tonight with the "wet paper towel in a baggie method" and will transplant the germinated results into Jiffy peat pots under lights A.S.A.P. I've never tried starting tomatoes germinated in this fashion but I hope I am successful.
My WOW trial will not be pushing the "early" envelope too much but this is the earliest I have been able to achieve. I still have a fairly monumental task of getting my garden ready given my long 56+ hours per week job plus helping my wife in her second battle with cancer. Tomatoes are a wonderfully innocent relief from the other pressures though.

[Indyartist]

I now have my WOW's up and filled. Our frost free date here in 5b NE Indiana is mid-May. My plan was to plant 9 plants in my 9 WOW's around mid-April or 4 to 5 weeks before the frost free date. The WOW packages say 6 to 8 weeks early but I thought I would try 4 to 5 weeks early first and see how that went. Here is where I might not have understood the concept, I assumed to put out the plants 4 weeks early meant to start my seeds 4 to 5 weeks early. The plants I started were transplanted to three inch pots on 2/16 which makes them around 8 weeks old on 4/3 which is close to 7 weeks early. The plants I started are doing VERY well, they are 8 different varieties with some now being 12 inches tall with some also having around a 12 inch spread.
The question is, should the plants started in WOW's be 8 weeks old and as large as mine or should the plants put out side early be much younger plants, perhaps 4 to six weeks old?
I may rush the plants out this Sunday as the weather is supposed to turn warmer. As I'm writing this it is 9pm and 34 degrees outside with the next few days with highs in the 40's. The WOW instructions say have them up a week in advance but Sunday is supposed to be in the low 50's and I could throw my victims out then. The WOW instructions also say to leave them around the plant for 30 days past the frost free date but I cannot imagine the plants being small enough to safely remove the WOW's in the middle of June.