So I can't stop myself...

So today I went to throw away the envelope that my Uncle sent me seeds in and realized there was one more little bag of tomato seed I didn't even see. A variety called Boxcar Willie! I've seen this variety a number of times and now I get to try it out.

That compounded with the fact that I ordered more seed today means that I have a real problem. A bunch of plants that I want to have - vs - not that much space to plant them. I'll definitely have to figure something out.

I added to my original list which brings the total so far to:

Paul Robeson (the favorite)
Boxcar Willie
Gold Medal
Black Krim
Yellow Oxheart
Yellow Mortgage Lifter
Lemon Boy
Better Boy
Green Zebra
Red Zebra
An organic Tasty Evergreen
Japanese Black Trifele
and Nyagouos (another purple/black variety)

So my list is growing. I don't want it to really but I can't help myself. I'm going to need to talk to someone about some land ha!

I hope to update from here on out weekly and plan on doing some how/to posts including but not limited to:

How to make your own salad boxes
How to make your own seed starting/growing shelves complete with lights.

Hope everyone is well.

Ok...

So there's 10 or 12 inches of snow on the ground... so what? We can still all dream about planting our tomato plants can't we?

I'm going to try a little harder this year to post more pictures and maybe even some video on the who, what and where. I just got some seeds in the mail from my Uncle George including Black Krim and Yellow Oxheart. This should be a fun year as tomatoes go.

I learned quite a bit from last year.

1. I need a bigger garden ha!
2. Flagging tape does hold up tomato plants but DOESN'T hold up tomato plants with tomatoes on them.
3. I know what didn't do well last year and what did.

As far as #1 is concerned, I'm going to address that to a point. Last year I had a strip of grass big enough for my tractor to fit down the center of the garden to get my clippings to the compost. I'm going to turn most of that back into usable soil. That at least would give me another two rows of tomatoes.
I'm not going to mess with cherry tomatoes this year. They did great last year but I personally could care less about them. My list of tomatoes that I want to plant is this:

Paul Robeson (the favorite)
Gold Medal
Black Krim
Yellow Oxheart
Yellow Mortgage Lifter
Lemon Boy
Better Boy
Green Zebra
Maybe a new Green Variety...

Now, instead of the 17 varieties I had last year, I can plant more of the tomatoes I really want to eat!

As for #2... I found out the hard way and toooooo late that flagging tape just won't hold tomato plants full of tomatoes to stakes. I did come away with three smaller rolls of concrete wire from the job site this fall so there's at least 7 or 8 more cages right there. I guess I will go spend the 70 dollars per roll and at least buy one, which would give me another 20 25 cages. With my slimmed down list and # of plants I should be fine adding those to what I already have.

Enjoy the Snow everyone... at least everyone around here...

Chris

Tomatoes on Sale

I put some tomatoes up for sale this past Sunday. They seemed to go pretty quick. I think I'm going to be selling them on Sundays and Thursdays for the time being.

So, if you're looking for something good to eat, stop by the backyard and put your money in the toolbox!

$1 a pound.

Paul Robeson

All I can say is yummy! Picked a couple Paul Robesons today. The first got quartered and eaten with salt and pepper. The other became Angelas' first tomato sandwich of the year. Things are looking up. Still crossing my fingers that I have a good selection come the middle of this month. With only a couple ripening we'll just have to see.
Hopefully everyone gets a chance to eat one of this variety this summer. Awesome taste, rich and just different. 'Better' even... when fully ripe the inside is almost a beet red color.

Also ordered a scale to put on the stand. As I said in my last post I'd hate to 'package' the tomatoes up already and with so many different sizes it just makes sense to sell them by the pound.

It's funny how great that thing tasted today. I guess I haven't really eaten a tomato like that since last year. Maybe that's why. The hothouse tomatoes you buy in the store with the dry pink interior just don't make the grade.

RED ALERT! RED ALERT!

3 Paul Robeson Tomatoes look to be ripening. They should be ripe in a couple days. Alas the public will not see them ha... I'm still hoping that the others begin to ripen shortly. Hopefully in 2 weeks (more or less) I'll have a decent enough selection to go around. I don't know how many Early Girls I'll even have as they seem to not be producing very well. The shade I think is a big factor for them. The Brandywines look awesome but are still not showing any color. Lets cross our fingers and hope that it all comes together soon.
I still need to figure out how to sell them. It's going to be a 'Do it yourself' stand as I won't be around during the day, but I'm leaning on finding a cheap scale to screw down to the table back there. Weight would be the fair way to do this. Especially since some of the tomatoes will barely fit in a quart container. Plus I don't want to set them up so that people HAVE to take what I choose to put in the baskets/containers. Should be mix and match.

I will also say that when they start ripening, the heirlooms will probably go real quick. When it all goes down I'll post more about them. The red and yellow striped varieties look to be well on their way and if they're as pretty as I think they're going to be, they'll be the first ones to go. People also need to understand too that the Heirloom plants don't produce as many tomatoes as the others so when they go out there, first come first serve. I'll most likely be putting them out around 6am to 6:30am so the early bird gets the worm.

Again, just a note to say it's the beginning but that no tomatoes are out yet. I'll post pics of the first ripe ones in the next couple days :) They'll be getting eaten by me! Hopefully this is the start of something good.

C'mon and Ripen Already!

One of these days I'll remember to force the camera into not posting the date and time on the pictures...

Anyways, I thought I'd take some shots of the garden to show what a couple weeks can do for you. The garden has changed quite a bit. The dreaded watermelon zucchini cross in the compost has gone from 'scary tendrils' to 'it's taking over'. Great looking 'watchamacalits' growing from it. Some are dark green, some are near black. Some are all yellow, some are a little bit of everything. Here's some pics!




Don't know what to say about that. They taste fine. I've been meaning to slice some up and grill them but always forget.

The cucumbers and I have been fighting a fierce battle. They keep trying to climb up on my tomatoes and I keep pulling them off onto the ground. Neither of us is winning. There is a winner though... The dog.
She loves cucumbers and while I was tying up the tomatoes on Sunday morning I heard her crunching and munching on them. She just goes out and picks her own. You can see where she's been wading through them in search of something big enough to snack on. I wondered why she always has 'dirt nose'. Now I'm positive that's why I have only got one cucumber so far this year.

The tomatoes are doing fine. Just not ripening up fast enough for me. We'll see what the next few weeks brings. Here are a couple pictures including one of a Brandywine Tomato plant with a 6 ft Hoe next to it to help gauge size.
I'm still crossing my fingers for the middle of July!

Land STAKES Alive!

So, finally I got my butt in gear and searched high and low for stakes for the tomato plants. I found some good old metal fence posts in the shed that I've used in previous years to hold my cages up. The next door neighbor had some that she wasn't going to use anymore. Then I made a trip to Lowes and bought a few cheap wooden stakes. I have a few plants that still need to be staked but I've put in some calls and have some Tobacco sticks coming soon so all is well.

I used green flagging tape to tie the tomatoes up and hope it will do alright. It's got some stretch to it, and much like using strips of sheets/pillow cases like I've done in previous years it shouldn't cut into the plants like twine or string would. Oh yeah, the best part is it's cheap!

The Brandywine, Mountain Fresh and Paul Robeson all have grown pretty tall very quickly. The Copia and Gold Medal is also doing well with lots of blooms which I'm excited about because they didn't do well at all last year. By far, the Brandywine seems to be outgrowing everything else and has tons of blooms too.

One issue I need to resolve is the pruning of a Red Birch planted next to the garden. It needs to be limbed up so that the tomatoes that are planted under it get more sun. They are the smallest in the garden. I man-handled the dill problem I had last year and have left only a few patches here and there. I also have some cucumbers that started from seed from last year but I just go out every couple days and make sure they aren't climbing up the cages or trying to grab hold of the tomatoes themselves.

The other bed of tomatoes is doing pretty well too. There's 15 or 16 planted in a different spot over by the fence and I was worried they might not get enough sun but look to be doing alright. The problem over there is I planted them too close to the lines that we hang our laundry on. I may be digging the first row out so that when we hang our laundry out to dry they won't get tomato pollen/green stuff all over them.

The last thing I'd like to mention is that in my compost, some plants sprouted out this spring. They looked like Zucchini so I let them go, but as they grew I started to wonder what they actually were... They have Zucchini leaves, but they were vining like crazy... I've never seen a zucchini plant take over like that. It's taken up the whole compost area. I thought about where I planted things last year and did some research on the net and it seems as though there's a slim chance that the hill of zucchinis I planted last season could have crosspollinated with the Carolina Cross Watermelon that I planted right next to it. That would explain the crazy vines and tendrils. You see, after eating the watermelon last year I put all the excess waste (rinds and seeds) into the compost. The plant has flowers like a zucchini, but the vegetable growing out of the flower is egg shaped with stripes ha.... we'll see what happens.