Summer Garden!

 After hours and hours of work and driving all over town to find the seedlings I wanted, I have my summer garden almost completely in.  I had to dig up all the beds, work some compost into our chunky clay soil, reset the watering system, and plant the seedlings.  Since I have four large beds and one small one, it took a good long while.  But it's almost done and it looks great!

Here's the diagram, and then I'll list the varieties with the photos below:

Top left, we have spinach (I forget the variety), peas (Progress No. 9), carrots (rainbow blend), two types of green beans (yard-long pole beans and blue lake bush beans), Beit Alpha Persian cucumber and spicy basil.  The spinach will be done soon, and then I plan to put a Juliet tomato there.

Top right is the tomato bed - last year it was top left, but I'm trying to rotate it among the two top beds, which get more sun that the two bottom ones due to neighboring trees.  Here are the heirloom varieties I'm trying this year: Evan's Purple Pear, Indigo Apple, Brad's Black Heart, Costoluto Genovese, Golden Jubilee, Porkchop, Heirloom Pineapple, Lush Queen, Sun Gold (not an heirloom), and Yellow Pear.  I've got three cherry varieties this year because they were such a big hit with the kids last year.  I couldn't find romas (!!!) for canning, so I've got 15 Healthkick and 9 Phoenix.

Bottom right, we still have a row of leeks from last summer, but they'll be coming out soon!  Then we have 18 red Better Belle II pepper plants.  In the center of this bed, a grey zucchini, one of my favorite varieties that you generally can't find at the grocery store or farmer's market.  I'll buy green and yellow ones from the market rather than growing them.  I planted two eggplants this year - should be just enough for eggplant parmesan, one of the few dishes I make with eggplant.  I picked the typical black beauty variety, plus one called Traviata.  If I find a rosa bianca variety, I may add another one, but I'm running out of space ...  Up in the corner, we have sweet basil, perfect for pesto.

In the middle, I have a small round bed with four poles that form a teepee.  I've planted the same yard-long pole beans at the base of each, with the plan to train the vines on strings that I'll tie horizontally to make "walls", leaving one side open for a door, so the kids can go hide in there.  At the moment, though, I've got lettuce growing in the middle and French breakfast radishes and two types of carrots growing around the edges.

And last, the lower left bed.  This one is a bit of a pain.  It has poor drainage, is in the lowest part of the garden, and gets the least afternoon sun, so it tends to stay damp, especially in the lower left corner of that bed.  The current tentative plan is to try growing some strawberries there (I know it's not an ideal location, but the kids picked them out, so I'm willing to give it a shot) and maybe some other less sun-friendly plants (heat-resistant lettuce?).  And on one side, I'd like to put in a sandbox for the kids.  Which will either be a lot of work, a lot of money, or both.  But it would have been SO helpful while I was busy doing all that digging and planting and watering.  I think it would still be useful as I keep caring for the garden with weeding, watering, and eventually harvesting, so I still hope to do it, and sooner rather than later (it's still more than 2 months until their birthday, so I don't know if it would be a birthday gift).  I may start trying to dig it out today!

Happy gardening!

Recovery

We've been back in Davis for a just under a week, and it's so nice to be back.  The trip home was uneventful, in the sense that the kids behaved, the flights were smooth and on time, and there were no national strikes or natural disasters.  I did not fare well, however, which is fairly typical for me, since I generally can't sleep on planes and 22 hours is a long time to stay awake while eating crappy food, not drinking enough water, and having to constantly monitor two munchkins.  Halfway through our longer flight from Munich to San Francisco, I developed searing headache that didn't go away until several hours after we got home.  That was followed by about 5 days and nights of jetlag that our kids just couldn't seem to adjust to.  It was rough.  I was in a complete daze, and didn't manage to unpack until yesterday.

Now things are nice.  The kids are happy to be home and have their old toys back.  I am happy to be home and have my garden and my house back.  I spent today out with the kids running errands, and worked in the garden while they slept, then went for a run and had a nice shower.  We cooked a yummy dinner.  Now I should probably be cleaning litterboxes and picking up toys and folding laundry and sorting mail, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Yesterday we went to the library, after two months of not having access to one.

Everyone was thrilled.  Turtle begged for Thomas the Train books, since he remembered that we used to get them there, and we had to have a librarian go dig some up for us, since another mom had taken all the ones available on the shelf.  We also got a few Richard Scarry and Berenstein Bears books, our other new favorites.

Today I worked in the garden, and it was sunny and glorious and awesome.  Even if it's too early to plant much, I'm taking advantage of my enthusiasm and trying to get as much done as possible before I run out of steam.  I planted some lettuce under our beanpole teepee, which will get some super-long climbing green beans later in the spring.

This is where the tomatoes were, which I pulled out today.  I should have waited to take the pictures until AFTER I leveled this plot and planted a few spinach plants in the corner, but oh well.

And here are some of the leeks I planted last spring.  They didn't do much last summer, but they look great now!

I also have some bush shelling peas germinating on the counter, and I prepped some 6-packs to start more lettuce in, but then the kids woke up from their nap, so that will wait until tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning we will go visit our Montessori preschool for a while.  I'm super nervous about leaving the kids there since they've become MUCH more attached to me.  While they've never been the type to run away from me without looking back, they have become much more nervous about letting me out of their sight.  Possibly two transatlantic flights plus two months in a foreign country away from their home and schedule will do that to a two-year-old.  Sigh.  Poor babies.

Tomorrow is another day, though - more housework, more gardening, definitely not more running just yet!

Garden beginnings, 2012

I planted the first plants in my vegetable garden today - 5 heirloom tomatoes, a yellow summer squash, and some basil. It's the first year of our new vegetable garden here at our house, and I'm quite excited. The garden is made up of 4 beds, about 8 feet by 13 feet each, which an automatic watering system. Two of the beds get full sun all day. One is reserved only for tomatoes, and I've dug deep furrows between three raised rows. One row will have around 10 heirlooms by the time I'm done, the other two will have 24 roma plants. The second full-sun bed will have 18-24 peppers, yellow and red, a green zucchini, a yellow zucchini, cucumbers, and basil. One part-sun bed will have eggplant (at least one dark purple and one lighter color), leeks, and green beans. I'm not so sure about growing leeks in this season, but it's worth a shot. I hope I can plant them soon. The last bed will have melons and winter squash. I'm still thinking about which kinds to plant - do I want to bother with carving pumpkins? We'll probably actually carve some pumpkins this year, so it might be worth it. We're planning to go to Italy in September, probably, so I don't know how that will affect the harvest. Hopefully I won't miss too much, after all this work!

Veggies

The last week or two has seen a lot of vegetables on my table, partly because the summer garden is finally producing.

On Monday, we roasted some beets, boiled some green beans, and sliced some cucumbers and tomatoes, and set them on the table in separate bowls to combine and dress with oil, vinegar, mayonaise and mustard, and experiment with different flavors. I was surprised to find that my favorite was green beans and sliced beets with oil and vinegar, although any of them with oil and salt was delicious, too. The tomatoes are the first Juliet and Super Italian Paste tomatoes from the garden. By the end of the week or early next week we'll have our first heirlooms (Cherokee purple!).

Last night, Loris sauteed carrots in olive oil, which we ate with some REALLY strong cheese he picked up at the co-op. On the side, we had sliced cucumbers with oil, vinegar, and mustard, and tomatoes with basil, olive oil, and burrata. If you like fresh mozzarella, you have never had burrata, and you have a chance to buy some, do it! It's amazing stuff.

We'll only have one or two more dinners with carrots and beets from the garden, but pretty soon we'll be eating peppers and tomatoes, and soon after that we'll hopefully have zucchini and eggplant. And hopefully we keep getting cucumber and green beans.

Garden update

Holy cow, I will never get those garden pictures posted.

The garden is doing really well! The tomatoes are getting huge, the vining ones are growing nice and tall and the determinates are getting nice and bushy. I've already been pruning and staking them, although at my sister's garden today I noticed that someone using the same stakingm ethod ties the vine much closer to the stake, so I will probably give that a shot. Quite a few of the plants have little (or big) green tomatoes.

The peppers are looking good. I'm excited! There are a few little ones here and there getting started.

The green beans have already started producing, and are getting huge. I am going to have to start picking them regularly.

The onions are almost out of the ground, I'll probably pick a few more today. The carrots look great, I need to pick more of those before it gets too hot. We might squeeze a few beets out, too.

Eggplant went in recently, four of them, and I've got two more waiting to go in. The cucumber is rapidly recovering from its post-planting malaise and I'm trying to get it trained up the trellises before it takes over its little corner of the garden.

The melon is doing fantastic, as are the butternut squash and yellow summer squash. The zucchini I grew from seed, however, is just not looking good. I'm a little worried and disappointed about that.

And that's it! I've started a mini-herb garden at home - two kinds of rosemary, sage, basil, and soon some parsley (when I get around to buying it). I've braided the garlic, and I'm drying the onions and shallots. Pretty soon, I'll be canning giardiniera, tomato sauce, zucchini, jam, and ketchup.

Oh, and a post about making mustard should be coming up soon. Just find me some time to write and post pictures!

Garden update - shallots, bermuda grass, new plants

I picked the shallots on Saturday, May 30. While a few were mushy, most of them were nice and firm. I feel really lucky about that ... whew! I'm either going to braid them (which doesn't seem as straightforward as braiding garlic), or I'll just do what I did last year and let them dry in some mesh bags hanging in the closet.

I finally had it with the bermuda grass (which I lamented last week). I spent hours on Monday and Tuesday after work digging the stuff out, even around the tomato plants as carefully as I could. It was back-breaking work, but I think I got about 90-95% of it, and I'm determined to start catching it again as soon as I see it. I might even pull out my parsley so I can get rid of what's hiding in there, and then start over.

The only problem is my neighbor, who has tons of bermuda grass in the corner right by the common border we share. I can't do anything about that, but I'm considering buying a big piece of plywood or something similar (and cheap), digging a trench (oh my poor back), and planting that thing in there. I figure one foot below ground and one foot above should stop that grass from coming over. It might come around, but at least I'll limit my vulnerability.

And last - I've planted some more stuff! New plants include two types of melon (ambrosia melon and a variety of Israeli melon - maybe Ogen?), butternut squash, yellow patty pan squash, my zucchini genovese that I grew from seed (2), two black beauty eggplants, and two rosa bianca eggplants. I'm pretty much done with my summer planting, yay!

Oh yeah, and after all that digging and weeding and planting, I did some mulching. I'm essentially mulching only the area around and between the winter squash and melons, since it won't be watered, will supress weeds (I hope) and provide a nice place for the melons and squash to hang out while they grow on their vines.

Here's my garden diagram:

Overrun by weeds

I'm struggling with the weeds this year, more than ever before, it seems. Bermuda grass, in particular, is a scourge I wish I could eliminate entirely from the garden. It's driving me nuts, and I don't think I'll be able to dig it out this summer for fear of damaging the roots of my tomatoes. I might settle with getting out as much as possible, then putting down a nice layer of mulch. If only I can figure out what kind of mulch to use.

I still have to plant zucchini, eggplant, winter squash, and melon. I'm hoping to do it tomorrow, after a big session of weeding and mulching.

I finally built my little tomato watering system, although I'm not sure how great it works. I did get a T-joint, found my old tubing and cut it in half, and ran a line into each channel. It seems to water a little slowly - to get a good deep watering, I think I'll have to let it run several hours, which isn't always possible. The tomato plants are looking fantastic, though - some already have some small green tomatoes! I'm busy pruning and staking and tying the vines, and Loris even said that they don't look completely out of control yet, which is always a good thing =)

Everything else is doing great:

1.We've picked most of the lettuce because of the hot temps.
2. The peas didn't produce because I planted them too late.
3. The peppers are mostly doing extremely well, except one or two that didn't pull through the heat.
4. The green beans look fantastic.
5. Radishes are almost done, and the flavor is getting too strong because of the heat.
6. Carrots are coming along well, and I'm harvesting regularly, although a few have developed hard, woody centers.
7. The leeks mostly went to seed, so I pulled them and will make do with the edible parts.
8. Spinach bolted - I have no luck with spinach.
9. The basil suffered from the heat, but is now rallying well.
10. Ditto for the cukes - I might replace one of them.
11. Onions - yum! They're still not really drying out, and a few have put up seed stalks, but we picked one and are slowly eating it fresh in salads.
12. Garlic - looks good, but I haven't dug it up yet to see. It's probably ready any day now.

One exception - shallots. I pulled a few, and the bulbs were all mushy. Not sure what's wrong, but it makes me very sad. =(

Next time: Decisions on mulch, garden update, and hopefully some pics

New garden plan

Loris decided that the tomatoes should all be together to make it easier to water them. So I'm carving out part of a path to become more tomato-growing space, making the path narrower, and having it shift slightly into the next bed. I think it will work fine, but let me say, digging up some ground that I've been walking on for the last several years is tough! The weeds have deep roots in this section, which also makes it hard, but will hopefully help get rid of some of them.

My body is aching from the amount of digging and tilling and mixing of compost that I've done recently. And when I'm done, I'll have to really do some weeding, especially if we're getting the rain they're predicting for this weekend. Still, the end is in sight - the garden will be planted and weeded in the next couple weeks and then I can't wait for the first summer veggies!

Here's the newest garden plan:

Summer's ... not quite here yet

Brrr, it's cold! Where did summer go? After biking to the train station last week in capris, sandals, and short sleeves, I'm back to long pants, socks, a jacket and gloves. It'll warm up again by next week (I hope!), but until then, we seem to be back to spring instead of early summer. I'm a little concerned for the seedlings I bought last weekend which need to be protected from these cold nights.

The garden has undergone a major transformation in the last week. Loris and I (but mostly Loris) put up a chicken-wire fence. We bought 3 rolls of 25-feet long, 3-feet high shicken wire and some poles and erected a somewhat flimsy fence around the garden. It didn't quite reach because the edges were so ragged that we lost about 6 inches to a foot off each end of all three segments, so I had to make up the difference with some different chicken wire and poles, which were harder to put up.

But! Now we have a garden fence. With a doorway. It's not really going to keep anyone out who really wants to get in, but hopefully it will keep out errant dogs, trash, and people who think my garden is abandoned and they can help themselves to my veggies or supplies without any guilt. Now, hopefully, they'll feel guilt.

Really, though, the important thing is the veggies. I planted most of the tomatoes yesterday, probably too close together. I put eggshells and compost in each hole, then buried the tomato plant fairly deep at the edge of the usual trough I dug in the center to hold water. Each tomato plant gets its own stake, with the exception of the romas which will be held up by string tied between stakes placed every three plants.

I didn't have enough space for all the tomatoes. I only managed to fit 24 into a space where I was hoping to fit 30, and they're still really tight. I'm reformulating my garden plan right now. It's tough. I have 12 romas, 6 brandywine, 4 super Italian pastes, one Juliet, one Cherokee purple, and 3 yellow/orange varieties. I want to get three more yellow/orange varieties (or maybe 2 plus one more purple or other heirloom), for a total of 6 more plants to find space for.

I finally pulled out all the chard(it was going to seed), turnips (Loris is thrilled), and fennel (we ate it all last week, yum). I have basil and peppers ready to plant, if not for the stupid cold weather. I also have some green beans that will get into the ground today. I need to get more, though.

This year, I'm planting two hot peppers for my sweetie - the same Anaheim pepper I planted last year, and a Cayenne pepper. Otherwise, I also have red and yellow bell peppers, and hopefully I'll find some orange ones.

And that's it! Photos and updates to come.

Spring plantings

My garden is in pretty good shape for the spring/summer. I have finally finished the bulk of my weeding, and I planted French breakfast radishes, several rows of carrots, and three varieties of beets – Chioggia beets, early wonder beets, and an heirloom mix (which includes Chioggia).

I also planted peas, even though I think it’s way too late for them unless the weather stays unseasonably cool for a while (I highly doubt it). Well, it’s worth a shot.

Here is a new diagram of the garden, with what I’m planning to put in around the edges.

Starting to dream of summer tomatoes!

Fall-winter garden, 2008

Fall/winter garden overload

I spent a crazy amount of hours in the garden today. I planted two rows of carrots, three rows of beets, two rows of fava beans (about 34 seeds), and 33 garlic cloves (I need to plant 3 more for 36 total.

I also planted 70 assorted onions (walla wallas, red torpedo, sonoma (sonora?) white, red burger (burgundy?), and an early yellow variety). I put them around the edges of the new seeds, the lettuce, and in front of the fava beans.

I did a bit of chores as well - took out the basil (and got a huge bag to make pesto to freeze) and the eggplants (one more little guy!), and did a bit of weeding.

In general, everything looks great!

Rainy day weather

Now it really feels like fall. It started raining yesterday, right before I had to bike to the train station, and kept right on going until after I biked home. I don't actually mind when it rains on my way home - I love stripping out of the wet clothes, putting on my fleece and slippers, and being cozy and warm while listening to the rain fall outside.

This will be great for the garden, both the veggies and the weeds. I have a huge list of things to do before winter arrives, but I still have time. The most pressing things are to get the basil and lima beans out, and plant more seeds (beets and carrots). It would have been great to get those seeds in the ground before the rain started, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

My plan this weekend is to hold up and do a ton of chores and fun stuff around the house. I’ll be working on my mosaic, making bread and soup, cleaning, crafting, crocheting, and hanging out with my sister while she does a bunch of the same things. Check back for an authentic, easy Eastern European soup recipe this weekend, along with some background info on the one connection I have to my cultural roots.

Tomorrow, I will make a run out through the rain to the farmer’s market to get fish – we haven’t had any in a few weeks, and I’m craving it. And I’ll probably have to stop at the Davis Food Co-op to pick up some essentials (we’re almost out of olive oil! Oh no!). But in general, I’m looking forward to hanging around the house in my pjs, drinking tea, eating soup, and just enjoying a slightly more relaxing weekend. Except the part where I take Cricket to the clinic for her shots. I don’t think anyone will enjoy that.

Happy Halloween!

I just got back from a crazy weekend of sight-seeing with friends and family from Italy. Being thorougly exhausted, I decided to use my half-day of remaining vacation time to ... work in the garden! Of course!

Actually, it was a great, if tiring afternoon. Here's what I accomplished:

1. Weeded around turnips, beets, radishes, carrots, and fennel.
2. Transplanted fennel that was growing too close together (hopefully it survives).
3. Picked eggplants, peppers, radishes, lettuce, and chard.
4. Removed 30 tomato plants and stakes/cages, and carted it all away to the weed/compost pile.
5. Put up some stakes and string to incentivize people from not going into my garden. It's not much of a physical barrier, but I'm hoping it will be a psychological one.

The turnips are getting huge! I forgot how quickly they grow, and now they're blocking the light from the beets. I'll have to replant some beets elsewhere.

Still to do in the garden before winter?

1. Remove basil and make pesto.
2. Remove peppers and eggplants when they're finished producing.
3. Add compost to the areas where I still have to plant.
4. Plant fava beans, carrots, beets, garlic, shallots, and onions.
5. Remove lima beans.
6. Extend the watering system - this can probably wait until spring, if it starts raining anytime soon.

It's going to be a lot of work before I'm done, but I always love how the garden looks when the seasons change, when new sprouts come up and before the real weeding begins.

Garden update

After a week of digging, adding compost, weeding, and planting, here is what the garden actually looks like.

Beginning of fall garden diagram

This isn't quite accurate - I haven't planted the fava beans yet. But otherwise, it's a plan-in-progress for what's happening in the garden right now.

First fall plantings

Now that we're finally having some cooler days, I can think about planting my fall and winter garden. It's still in the low 90's in the afternoons, but the nights are cool, and the days are bearable. It's a good idea to give the plants a start before it gets too cold for them. Plus, this way we may have some vegetables for Thanksgiving!

On Saturday, I cleared out a lot of the garden, dug in some compost, and planted lettuce and chard seedlings, and fennel seeds.

Today, I dug in some more compost and planted two rows of carrots, two rows of turnips, one row of radishes and one row of beets. I would have planted more beets, but I ran out of seeds. Whoops! It's the same package I started in the spring.

So we'll have the lettuce and radishes for salad by mid-October, and turnips, beets and carrots by late fall, hopefully. It will be my first time growing fennel so I'll have to do an update on how it goes.

Three cheers for the new seasons. If you have garden-attention-deficit-disorder, like me, you'll find that the seasons are just the right length to always keep you interested and excited by what comes next.

Busy, busy days

Yesterday I spent 2 HOURS weeding the garden. It's crazy, but I'm learning lessons. Like, no matter how much I love sunflowers, I should never let volunteers grow anywhere they want to in my garden. They turn into minitature trees that are a huge pain to remove. And I really need to weed around the zucchini when it's small. And the green beans, too, because it's so hard to weed when they get bigger.

So yesterday, I almost completely cleaned one section of my garden - the only things left are the melon, butternut squash (which I planted too late, I guess), a few carrots, and a wall of basil. I'm going to start planting winter veggies there as soon as I can get to the store to buy some seedlings and compost. Here it is, the end of August, and we are suffering 103 degree heat. It's hard to think about planting fall and winter vegetables.

The early and mid summer vegetables are tapering off. We certainly didn't have much luck with tomatoes in general this year, and especially the heirlooms. One plant, the watermelon beefsteak, did especially well, and the costoluto genovese did, too. The others all pretty much sucked. The zucchini and yellow squash are definitely slowing down, and so are the green beans. The peppers, on the other hand, are still going strong, along with the eggplant, and the lima beans are full of pods, just waiting to fatten up.

Pretty soon I'll be planting carrot and turnip seeds, and maybe some leeks, and some cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli. In a few months, it will be time for the garlic and shallots, which we are immensely enjoying from last year's crop. Fall is just around the corner - and I have to get ready, even if it is sweltering outside.

Returning from Italy

Coming back to my garden after two weeks away is a bit of a nightmare. Some of our friends in Davis were extremely thoughtful to water our garden for the time we were gone, and my sister stopped by in the middle to water the tomatoes, pick green beans, and generally set things in order as much as possible in an hour or two. Going to the garden at least every other day really hid from me the amazing changes that go on every day, but which are so small that I don't even notice them.

Primarily, despite my warnings to my friends to not touch my tomatoes, apparently they didn't know they also weren't supposed to water them. So for two weeks, they got way more water than I ever intended, and the resulting growth is incredible. I have vines falling all over the place, and have already spent a lot of time trying to get them back under control. I don't have all that many tomatoes yet, for this time of year. We've had a few heirlooms, and I have a basket of romas, and that's about it so far. Hopefully in another week or two I'll be able to start canning. Since we have so many jars of sauce from last year still, I'll probably make more tomato juice and ketchup this year instead. Yum!

We have had three beautiful melons - two were extremely ripe when we returned from Italy, and one isn't ready yet. We've already eaten one and a half of them, they're super-sweet and delicious. I don't know if I'll plant them again, though. For the amount of space they take up, I don't know if it's worth it.

We had tons of green beans. Unfortunately, the plants seem to be drying out quite a bit. We'll see what happens. I'm having a hard time with the weeds, they inter-grow with the bean plants and it's really hard to pull them. The beans are also getting huge and falling over - I may try staking them to keep them off the paths.

We also have lots of carrots and beets. The latest batch of carrots look great, much better than the older ones. It's about time to start planting new ones for fall. We're just about out of beets, I'm not sure if I'll try to grow them in the fall or wait again until early next spring.

Another thing that is doing great are the shallots. I've essentially stopped watering them, but some of them are still in the ground. I'll probably pull them all out today and store them with the garlic in our carport. They're delicious, and I think well worth growing.

The peppers are also doing amazingly well, but are suffering a lot from the weeds as well. I plan to do some major weeding after work today, and if I don't finish, I'll have to get to it on Sunday. We eaten a few peppers raw and in salads - none to roast yet. The yellow ones are so light green that it's hard to tell if/when they're ripening.

Basil and parsley is all doing well, really getting big. Both zucchini plants are huge and producing well, and the lima beans grew amazingly fast. It's hard to believe they're the same plants I left 2.5 weeks ago. The cucumber, sadly, isn't looking so great, but it's not a big loss if we lose it. And the eggplants are starting to produce - woohoo!

And that's my not-so-quick update! I'm starting to keep a written garden journal, so that I can post more stories, meals, and essays here instead, and not write out updates and lists and pretend to be interesting.

All about tomatoes

NOTE TO SELF - GET PICTURES!!!!!

I LOVE growing tomatoes. I love the way the plants smell, and the way my hands smell after handling the plants. I love the amazing variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. I love the taste! And the versatility of using them. They're delicious fresh in salad, or any number of appetizers. They're delicious on pizza. They make fantastic sauce for pasta or eggplant parmesan. Tomatoes juice is yummy and nutritious. And ketchup! Yummmmmmmmmm.

In my garden, I have six heirlooms (which I believe I wrote about in a previous post), and 24 roma tomato plants. The heirlooms are in cages, and I did try to limit the number of vines they have, although I haven't been too successful. A few of them aren't looking all that great, but a couple already have some nice-sized tomatoes. They're planted down at the end of the rows of romas.

The romas are planted about 18 inches apart in two rows, which are about two feet apart. There's just enough space for me to walk between the rows. I'm keeping myself busy, especially now with the warm weather, because the plants are growing quickly. I'm busy picking off the side shoots, to try to keep the plants to one main stem. The problem is that I'm not sure whether these romas are determinate or indeterminate. If they're determinate, I'm not sure that picking off the side shoots is the best idea. But it's what I was told to do, so I'm doing it. I'll have to look into it more next year.

The plants are anywhere from 1 to 2 feet high right now, and I've just begun tying them to their stakes. I think perhaps I put the stakes a little too far from the plants. They're about 4-6 inches away. I'll update later on how things turn out later in the season.

At this point, I've gradually decreased watering from twice a week to once every 5-6 days. I try to let the water run for at least an hour, more if possible. Today I probably let it run for almost 2 hours. This is really what tomatoes need.

We certainly have our first green tomatoes. When we have our first red, orange, yellow, or purples tomatoes - I'll certainly post a picture!