I was craving some dirt and was waiting until the last possible seasonal minute to dig in before the weather had me hibernating. The last 60 degree weather day arrived and I got my urban farming hands dirty. In my process I was paying attention to the roots of my plants because some of them didn’t produce as much as I would like. My hypothetical thought was that if something was root bound or I found rot or something else questionable I would have an answer to why my plants may have not produced.
I found my basil and thyme were decently root bound. This makes sense for the basil because it wasn’t producing as much towards the end of the season. My thyme seemed to love being contained I was shocked how much one plant produced. I didn’t learn anything about my bean or jalepeno plants, I will have to research and do experiments next season to determine what happened this year.
Then I tackled my tomato container. I was shocked! One parsley plant took up 1/3 of the container. A 1/3!! I quickly pulled out my books and nothing came up about the parsley root system going crazy (and in my mind acting a bit like a weed, man I was annoyed). With a some Internet research I learned that parsley can have a big tap root, mine had more then one of these pesky tap roots. I had two parsley plants in my container with my tomato, one parsley plant was huge the other stayed to a manageable size. Here are the photographs. For size purposes, my hand is 7.5" long from tip of middle finger to wrist. The container is 15"square, and 14" tall.
I still have the question if the parsley hindered my tomato plant along with other factors (i.e. roof was is too hot, all of the rain in July). Any thoughts?
Perhaps a good idea to journal it..I remember planting tomatoes in different 'hot' spots. If you recall the open space next to the water pump, it was full sun and veggies were a little more than good. But when planted in the bed by the french doors, there was additional heat from planter and the tomatoes thrived. In this new home the court yard kept heat in (plus a wall), tomatoes thrived. But our CA weather wasn't as warm as it usually gets. Were some of your plants adjacent to walls where heat may reflect? So I'm guessing that weather, type of container combined with location (and of course the soil)all make gardening interesting and keep us guessing every season. I feel like such a novice! But can't imagine not gardening :)
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