Meatless Monday: Bag of Tomatoes
by Jul 10th, 2011 // Meatless Mondays
Meatless Monday: Bag of Tomatoes
At first I couldn’t decide if this was trashy or cute. Wasn’t even sure I should share… but now I’m head over heels in love with my bag of tomatoes.
Here’s the back story: There’s nothing more wonderful than a warm tomato right off the vine drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of sea salt. I like to pretend my grocery store “on the vine” tomatoes are “garden fresh” so I leave them on the counter until they’re super ripe and drizzle away, but somehow they never taste as amazing.
I’ve been wanting to plant tomatoes forever but every year I’m intimidated. Actually, that’s not exactly true. Mostly I’m just too lazy to get it done in time and then I just tell myself I’ll do it next year.
Last week my parents were in town and my mom pointed out that I didn’t even need a raised bed to grow my own tomatoes. Turns out she was right.
You don’t need no raised beds, heck, you don’t even need a shovel. All you need is a bag of dirt, a tomato plant, a stake and your bare hands… and voila! a perfectly adorable tomato plant will be growing in your back yard.
Tell me it isn’t sort of adorable? Cannot wait to eat these… here’s how to make your own bag of tomatoes:
Bag of Tomatoes Instructions
Supplies:
1 large bag of soil (2 cubic feet)
1 tomato plant
1 tall round stake
1 screw driver
water
1. Pick the closed bag up a few times and lift it about a foot off the ground. Drop it a few times until the dirt settles.
2. Take a screw driver and poke 15 to 20 holes in towards the bottom half of the bag.
3. Open the bag and roll down the sides.
4. Take your tomato plant out of the plastic container it came in and set it aside.
5. Stick your hands in the soil and dig out enough dirt to fill the plastic container.
6. Place the tomato plant in the hole you dug and then put the dirt back into the bag patting it down so it’s nice and snug.
7. Gently push the stake in over the tomatoes and pull up on the leaves so they are resting against the stake.
8. Water generously until water comes out the holes.
9. Water as directed and watch your plant grow!

Seriously awesome!
This is the BEST solution to the ground behind my house that seems to have a layer of granite just underneath. Seriously I’ve never ever seen ground so hard. Every year I say I’m gonna plant a raised bed, and EVERY year summer passes by and I never get to it. I love this. It’s definitely cute. Trashtastic.
I wonder what else you could plant in one of these, cause I would love to make a raised bed this coming summer but I just can’t visualize that I will actually do it! But I don’t like tomatoes, I like things made from tomatoes like salsa, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, etc!
In a townhome with just a patio for a back yard….this is perfect! Love fresh tomatoes!!!
I just stumbled upon your site. All I have to say is an insane amount] of info. Perhaps you would be willing to swap links?
Hello!
I’m asking for permission to take two of your pictures to use them on my website (about container gardening too). They will be credited, of course.
Thanks in advance (waiting for an email!)
Hi, Superb gardening work. I think you bought planting bag from market. Instead of buying from market, you can yourself make it in tiny sizes.
Steps:
Take Water bottles (ex: 1 ltr) Bisleri, Aquafina etc.
In body side, cut Half portion and fill ordinary soil.
Insert tomatto seeds pour water. Wait 10 days, you will get good tomatto plants.
keep gardening.
nagarajan
http://www.tngovernmentjobs.in
Suggest the bag be supported against tipping over. Three long stakes driven through and a foot into the earth might do it. These will also support the plant also as it grows tall by tying cord around the stakes to form a trellis.
Pretty simple.. I find the most difficult projects if given sum thought, careful reconsideration and animated discussions they can become the simplist projects. But without the intrest in other people’s 2 cents that difficult project continues to stump oneself..