At the right is Herb Sorensen and his incredible 10 foot tomato tree.

Herb is a self-taught scientific gardener who loves to experiment with his plants. This tomato is the result of his experiments. This photo was taken on July 11, 2010. We'll follow the plant as it develops.

First Herb dug a hole four feet deep and planted the already gangly tomato that deep. He surrounded this single tomato plant with a super environment. The plant has its own greenhouse with plastic on all four sides. Herb controls the temperature with a fan, watching the temperature closely with his temperature guage (shown right). The plant also has a strong support system of fencing and hoops.

The hole is filled with sifted top soil and 25 gallons of compost. The compost is organic, composed of dried leaves, grass clippings, wood chips, llama manure and cow manure. The compost is aged 8 years.

The top soil in the hole is amended with a dynamite cocktail of bone meal, fish meal, crab meal, ground rock phosphate, green sand, azomite, dried kelp (seaweed), ground oyster shells and dried alfalfa meal.

The lucky tomato plant has a three times a week drip irrigation of fish emulsion. This means that three times a week, Herb puts this liquid fish seaweed emulsion into kitty litter containers with a special fitting (right) that allows 1 drip at a time to feed the plant. It takes five hours for the emulsion to drip out one drip at a time.Herb believes the drip irrigation is the secret to success.

Herb uses what he has, needing no expensive equipment.

The tomato plant itself is a variety called Delicious which Herb ordered online from seed. The variety is "indeterminate", which means it will keep growing and producing. The other type of tomato is "determinate" which means its growth is limited.

Herb expects to get two pound tomatoes from his incredible tomato tower. At the right is the top of the tower with many blossoms and the start of the tomatoes. We'll keep you up on its progress.