I am going to fast forward to present time. It is now the end of June and the produce that I started back in October-November 2009 are still growing. They are not producing much fruit but I think it is amazing that they survived this long. Outside on the balcony I’ve been picking the tomatoes and using them in TommyV’s Salsa and making my specialty Chicken Bone Leroy BBQ Juice. The jalapeno and habanero plants are growing very well and are producing many flowers.
Now it’s late April and the dangers of frost are long gone. Lets get these plants outside. Space is very limited where I live and run my business. I need to use as much space as tastefully as possible to grow my produce. I use half of my balcony to grow the transplanted tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, habanero peppers, bell peppers and cilantro. Remember, I started my plants from seed and now have them in their final growing pots. The plants get about 8 hours of south east sun a day and get watered about once a week dependent upon how much rain we get. 
Since my plants were started in the middle of fall, I allowed the plants to bask under the grow lights for about 14 hours a day. For watering, I allowed the soil to become dry then gave the plants a good soaking. Allowing the soil to completely dry kept the fungus gnats in check. They needed transplanting a couple of times because of how fast they were growing. After about 30-40 days I needed to once again rearrange my living area to accommodate the fast growing plants. My peppers also started getting flowers on them. To keep my pepper plants a little longer I plucked of the flowers to keep them from fruiting. The plants thrived over the winter so in my next post I am going to fast forward a couple of months to spring and summer.
Every since I started my food business, the ultimate goal was to grow my own produce for my salsa, TommyV’s Salsa. The one obstacle I had to overcome was where to grow my produce. I have a certified kitchen in my home to make my delicious salsa but I live in a 900 square foot space on the 10th floor with a balcony. Looking around my place for available space I decided to turn the dining room into the area where I will grow my produce. Rearranging the dining room was not too bad, but finding space to store what was in the dining room was a bit challenging. After spending hours coming up with creative ways to store things, I finally have space to start growing. To put it all in perspective, it was mid October of 2009 when I started my urban indoor garden. I planted from seed, tomatoes and bell peppers to see if it was all possible.
I started the seeds in the paper type egg cartons. I place the egg cartons into vented plastic bins and placed it on top of a heating pad. Within a week I had seedlings sprouting. I then place all the seedlings into a large plastic tub and constructed a structure to hang my grow lights.
Welcome to Tommy V Foods, LLC. My name is Tommy and I am the founder/CEO of Tommy V Foods, LLC. I started my food business out of necessity because I was laid of from my job back in 2008. Because I couldn’t find another position in my field, which was graphic/web design, I decided to follow my passion for cooking. It’s been a long journey since I sold my first container of salsa and the journey has just begun. Over the next few months I am going to be documenting on the projects I’ve been working on.
Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals--environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. A variety of philosophies, policies and practices have contributed to these goals. People in many different capacities, from farmers to consumers, have shared this vision and contributed to it.