Tomatoes Were Finally Planted on May 10th

Yay! Planting the garden has finally commenced. Wednesday, May 10th was a nice cloudy day with rain predicted in the next day or so. Perfect time to start putting plants in the ground. That morning my husband tilled the garden again to work in the rabbit manure and azomite rock dust we just spread out over the whole area.

First up. Tomatoes and more tomatoes were planted out 2 feet apart. I started out planting deep and amending each planting hole with crushed eggshells, used coffee grounds, and a handful of worm castings. But that was taking too long considering rain was in the forecast, so with my husbands help we just started putting them in as fast as possible.

The 2 beds in the front contain Brandywine, Black Brandywine, Dark Brandywine, and Yellow Brandywine. Brandywine usually does very well in our hot sticky climate ripening before the end of July.

You can see we have already started putting up the tomato cages. The galvanized steel cages are 54 inches tall which will be staked with 6-feet-tall bamboo poles held on by zip ties.

The powder coated cages in the back are 42 inches tall and were purchased off of a friend. There's a path down the middle of the garden leading to the greenhouse so each long bed was split into two.

Fat Cherry forming tomatoes.

Black Cherry also blossoming and forming fruit.

Sungold hybrid with little itty bitty cherry tomatoes forming.

 Brandywine with its distinctive potato leaves flowering.

Granny Cantrell's German Red tomato.

Tomato plants were started from seed March 12th. Normally they would have gone in the ground at the end of April but the wet rainy weather was against us this year. So they are much larger than usual, which means I won't have to worry about bird predation. Woohoo! I can usually count on birds destroying half the tomato plants that are set out in the garden, instead there are now lots and lots of extra tomato plants... My husband says he'll visit some neighbors tomorrow and see if they want any.

Just about every variety has blossoms or tomatoes forming. I really think the greenhouse has hastened the growth and maturity of the plants. Since this is our first year with a greenhouse, we'll find out at the end of the season if that will affect overall yield.

Greenhouse Update

Tomato plants in the greenhouse are really tall, the ones in the quart yogurt containers are between 18 and 24 inches tall. It must be the greenhouse making them grow like this, they look leggy to me.

More weirdly tall tomato plants. It's been a warm and very very windy last couple of days so hopefully the ground will dry out soon and I can get some planting done.

Can you see the blossoms forming on the tall one in the middle? Yeah, they're everywhere. Almost all the tomato plants have flowers.

Nice fluffy leaved eggplants. I've killed 3 flea beetles and there doesn't seem to be anymore damage so far.

And the pepper seedlings are still doing ok. Most of the plants are of the Numex anaheim types like Big Jim and Joe E. Parker, but I also got Jalafuego hybrid and Aji Lemon to germinate as well as Early Jalapeno.

And the Mizuna and Tatsoi are out of control. There's 6 Mizuna plants in styrofoam cups under that mess of leaves, I've been picking off outer leaves lately and they actually seem happier for it.

It's probably a good thing I wasn't able to get anything planted before the rain. By Sunday our entire backyard was underwater. My husband said a couple of roads were still washed out on Monday when he went to pick up some rabbit manure for the garden. But luckily a couple of really windy warmish days have dried out a lot of it.

In other news, my partner built a deck in our backyard in April which has been inspiring him to do some grilling. Today he grilled steaks, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and pineapple. So good. It's going to be a wonderful summer of grilling.

Garden Tilled and a Greenhouse

Friday was spent weeding the entire garden and then afterwards my husband tilled. We're still planning to amend the soil with composted rabbit manure and rock dust which will also be tilled into the garden.

He finished putting up the greenhouse a week ago, and of course I immediately moved all the seedlings out there. It might actually be a little too warm for the cool weather crops, on 70 degree days it can reach almost 90 in there if I forget to open the windows.

 Some cool weather seedlings like kohlrabi, spinach, mizuna, tatsoi, leeks, and bulb fennel.

Tomatoes galore got potted up into individual containers and quickly moved into the greenhouse along with peppers.

 Some Jalafuego chili peppers seedlings.


 In the foreground are 3 eggplant seedlings with their spoon shaped true leaves.

And of course the tomatoes are basking in the added warmth.

Tomato and Pepper Varieties

Tomato seedlings needing to get potted up into individual containers, or else there will be dire consequences. The flowers planted in the same tray are taking forever to come up.

Pepper seedlings were started weeks before the tomatoes but of course they took ages to come up and as always they are much slower growing.

I had a lot of old tomato seeds which are planted just to see if they are still viable. I've already made a list of the number of each variety I'm planning to grow this year, so there's going to be lots of extra seedlings. (Usually half the plants are lost to bird activity.) Most of the tomato varieties are known for their flavor rather than their ability to produce. Luckily we usually have the perfect weather to grow Brandywine, so that sometimes makes up for it.

List of hot peppers that have germinated:
Early jalapeno
Hungarian Hot Wax
Jalafuego
Numex Big Jim
Numex Joe E. Parker
Santa Fe Grande
Aji Lemon

The only peppers that didn't germinate are Serrano and Anaheim.

List of tomatoes that have germinated:
Fat Cherry
Black Cherry
Sun Gold Cherry
Amish Paste
Ananas Noire
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Big Rainbow
Big Zebra
Black from Tula
Black Krim
Black Prince
Black Brandywine
Dark Brandywine
Pink Brandywine
Yellow Brandywine
Celebrity hybrid
Cherokee Purple
Chocolate Stripes
Cosmonaut Volkov
Coustralee
Golden King of Siberia
Goldie
Granny Cantrell
Hillbilly Flame
Jubilee
Kelloggs Breakfast
Lilac Giant
Manyel
Mexico
Orange Icicle
Pantano Romensco
Paul Robeson
Peron
Pilcer Vesy
Pink Berkeley Tie Dye
Red Pear
San Marzano Redorta
Taxi

The tomatoes that haven't germinated are Djena Lee's Golden Girl and Pruden's Purple. These are some of my oldest tomato seeds so there's no surprise with the lack of germination.

Pink Brandywine is my favorite tomato, on good years the flavor is outstanding and production heavy. I've only had one good year with Cherokee Purple whose flavor is excellent, most times they split terribly and rot in our sweltering humidity but I'm going to give it another go. Friends who regularly grow Cherokee Purple say they are much more consistent in raised beds.

Tomatoes usually get potted up twice. They go from seed starter tray to little Styrofoam cups, then onwards to quart-sized yogurt containers. Yes, we eat a lot of yogurt. Out in the garden, tomatoes and peppers get crushed eggshells and used coffee grounds in their planting holes.

This year I'm keeping rock dust and beneficial nematodes to my lineup for soil amendment as well as adding garden inoculant for beans and peas. So we shall see, what we shall see.

Peppers Sprouted

At the end of February I started a few vegetable seeds in the basement next to the furnace and water heater. On sunny warmish days the seed tray goes outside to soak up some sun. But alas, birds found the tray and pulled up a few just emerging sprouts.

It took almost 3 weeks for the first peppers to germinate. Early Jalapeno, Numex Big Jim, Jalafuego, Joe E. Parker, Lemon Drop, Santa Fe Grande, and Hungarian Hot Wax have all germinated. Neither Serrano and Anaheim chili peppers never did come up even with heavy reseeding .

The little pepper seedlings were potted up into individual Styrofoam containers. I'm a bit worried about the peppers that haven't emerged, Serrano and Anaheim are great peppers for salsa. It's definitely getting late in the seed starting season.

Back in March my husband came home with a couple of quart jars of salsa he found in the shop. Both jars were from the 2013 growing season. That was just a fantastic year for our homemade salsa, it's like eating bottles of sunshine.

Hopefully this year will be a good for tomatoes and peppers, so we can do some serious canning.