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This is me, an amateur gardener with an idea.
What if instead of buying tomato plants, I buy a sandwich and get extra free tomatoes on it?
Then I take those seeds and grow them into my very own tomato plants and then make a profit off of all the veggies it produces.
A genius business plan?
I think so.
At this point in time, I don't know if it will actually work, but we're about to find out. I headed to the sandwich empire to see if I could even get free extra tomatoes, because if not, then this whole thing is gonna be over before it even begins.
And then, could I do double tomato, please?
Thank you.
So extra tomatoes are free?
Okay.
Awesome, thank you.
Thank you, cheers, love.
See ya.
Sandwich acquired. And so now the experiment officially begins.
Time to plant the tomatoes.
So these are the tomatoes I'm gonna plant.
These ones I'm leaving in the sandwich so that it's a delicious lunch.
This is what I'm going to put them in.
It's gonna act like a little greenhouse.
To make their house a home, I added some seed starting soil, then drenched it in water and got my hand right in there, mixing it around.
All right, that should do it. Our first tomato off on a new adventure.
Tuck him in there.
This is what we're after.
You see those little seeds?
The hope is that each one of those seeds will sprout an individual full tomato plant.
Our final tomato friend.
Looking a little, oh, some lettuce fell in.
Maybe I'll grow a lettuce plant.
That's not how it works.
Okay, in goes our last tomato friend.
And the final step is to cover them with more soil, add a bit more water, and then just, dang it.
I just realized that there's no drainage holes under the bottom of it.
So I'm gonna make some.
Oh, Jesus.
This definitely would have been easier before I filled it.
Learn from my mistake.
Okay, I think that should do it now. And so it begins, day number one.
I'm gonna do my best to document the progress and hopefully they turn into some amazing, beautiful tomato plants. Day two, update.
There's absolutely no changes whatsoever.
But our little greenhouse dome is working.
Look at all that condensation.
Oh, baby. What a glorious day.
Check this out.
Some of the seeds have officially sprouted.
Look at them.
There's at least 10 of them so far.
Oh, I'm so excited right now that it's actually working.
Like, I know it's common knowledge that seeds turn into plants, but legit, a few days ago, this was just a part of a sandwich.
And it's only day five.
That happened way faster than I thought it would.
I was gonna shoot a really cool time-lapse and show the progress, but all of a sudden, they're here.
So please enjoy this cool video of a seed sprouting and just imagine that it was the tomatoes. I will continue to nurture and care for my little babies here.
And hopefully, they keep growing nice and strong. And grow they did.
Over the next few weeks, I was amazed to see them thriving and I made sure to give them all the love and care that they deserved.
I was feeling so confident until day 20.
I have good news and I have bad news.
You want the bad news first?
Okay.
The bad news is that my seedlings are having a bit of an issue.
See how their stems are really skinny and long and then their leaves are kind of pale green?
Thanks to the internet, I learned that this is a problem known as laggy seedlings.And the good news, I know you've been waiting for it, is that also thanks to the internet, there might be a solution that will save the tomato plants.
This is Jason.
He wrote a very thorough article explaining how to rescue laggy tomato plants.
And everyone, go comment, thanks Jason. So I took his advice and upgraded to a bigger container, then took out my struggling little plants and repotted them by burying the whole stem.
This will apparently help encourage them to put their energy into growing a strong root system instead of just stem growth.
It's done.
I've chosen the 18 strongest, most thriving plants and hopefully they make a comeback.
Because I'll be sad if they all just die after all this time.
I gotta be honest, this was the first of two irresponsible acts of plant care. And the second thing, well, we're leaving on a three week long road trip.
And it was awesome.
A really special time away.
We saw a ton of beautiful sights, but you know what was on my mind the whole time?
My dang tomato plants back home. Finally, after 15 days away, we got a video update.
Oh, they're still alive.
They're thriving actually.
Look at them.
They look better than when Connor was taking care of them.
Look at those beauties.
They're getting so big. Yeah, they are.
Yeah, you do.
Thank you, mom. So the first thing I did once we were home was to pet my dog.
Now for the next important thing, planting the tomatoes into the garden.
I'm actually so surprised by how big they are.
Like, these ain't little babies anymore.
It's time, almost ripped this one off.
It's time to give them a proper new home, permanent home into the garden. I was so proud that my plan was working and I couldn't wait to harvest a ton of tomatoes from these plants.
I neatly transplanted each one.
I was kissing them for some reason and added little pieces of wood as support.
And the final one.
There we go.
Here they are, all cozy in the garden.
Will they produce any tomatoes?
At this point, I still don't know, but hopefully in a few short weeks, we'll be able to tell. I hate to say it, but things are not going well.
The tomato plants are looking rough.
This one is just completely shriveled up.
Just like my hopes and dreams now.
I'm not sure what I did wrong, but clearly it was something or I can just blame it on the crazy windstorm that happened a few days earlier.
But either way, I was feeling pretty sad. Dang it.
Technically this idea does work because I got a sandwich with three extra tomatoes.
And then I did pour a ton of care and love into them and they grew, they grew into beautiful little seedlings.
But now there's no way I'm getting my infinite tomato hack out of these.
There's not a single one here that's thriving.
This is not how I'd hoped this video would go.
But I was encouraged by master gardener, Jason.
Remember him?
And I guess I'll just have to try again next year.
This also might work with the cucumbers.