Growing Tomatoes? Start Eating Bananas!

I went with "Sweet Million" cherry tomatoes this year. I hear these little cluster tomatoes ripen fast and taste like candy. Last time I planted tomatoes, I chose Celebrity, Beefsteak slicing tomatoes and one Brandywine heirloom. And I waited and waited and waited for a tomato to ripen on the vine so I could eat it. This year I am going for quantity.

If you are planning on planting tomatoes, start saving your banana peels. When I first heard about this practice, I thought wrapping a banana peel around each tomato plant before sticking it in the ground sounded like wacky organic gardening voodoo. But when I looked it up on the garden sites, I discovered that lots of organic gardeners were using both banana peels and egg shells as their tomato-plant starter fertilizer.

One gardening site recommended 16 egg shells and two banana peels per plant! Suddenly, I felt like my tomato plants were underprivileged, with just a little half a peel wrapped around each one. Too late to dig them back up I guess.