I've been planting this vegetable garden for about 7 years now, but it has been a garden for generations. The man who owned this house before me planted here, his parents planted here and their parents planted here. Over time the size of the garden has changed in size and the crops planted have changed as well.
I've always planted a diverse array of vegetables and/or flowers but this year I decided to do something different and plant almost all of the garden in my favorite varieties of Tomatoes. 17 varieties to be exact... and 79 plants. I had this idea that I would sell them to the neighborhood folks that are always walking by. I doubt I'll have a problem getting rid of them but we will see.
I've used no fertilizer and no pesticides at all. I collect grass clippings and leaves, refuse from the kitchen and it goes into an 8' by 8' compost that's fenced into the center of the garden. All year long this builds up and each spring I spread the rich black compost across the garden to be tilled in for the coming years harvest.
About half of the tomato plants I planted were grown from seed by me. The other half were bought from local Amish farms. They were planted about 3 weeks ago and are well on they're way. Some problems I'm facing now include wire grass invading the bed and the fact that I've never had this many tomato plants before ha! I've only got about 20 cages and I'm trying to do this on the cheap... I've got some posts and may just be staking most of them, as it costs quite a bit of money to make decent cages for them. I priced some concrete wire , which in my opinion is the only way to go, and I found that one roll of wire @ 150' costs roughly $110 dollars. @ 6 feet of wire needed per cage that would leave me with 25 cages at that price. Quite expensive, at least for me... so stakes it is. We'll have to see what I can rustle up.
We'll talk more about the varieties I've planted and I'll post some neat pictures of the garden from 'back in the day' up till now. Happy Planting.
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AWESOME! I'm sure you will be very creative in finding or making cages...we will be watching! Grafton would be proud!!! XO Mom
ReplyDelete79 plants! You will have many happy neighbors. I agree that Grafton would be very proud!
ReplyDeletePerhaps you can try stringing nylon cord between some of the stakes. You could make rows like a vineyard and tie on the runners of the tomato plants. Might work...might not.
ReplyDeleteGlad you are doing a blog. You should also post photos of your Mom when she climbs over the fence to steal your 'maters.
I'd have to use some sort of wildlife cam to catch her. I hear she does most of her vegetable burglary by the pale light of the moon.
ReplyDeleteOK, enough!!!
ReplyDeleteWho enjoys the fruits of my labors...spaghetti sauce & blackberry jam in the freezer, fig jam, chilisauce, tomatoe chutney in the pantry? Need I go on.....
XO Mom