5/19/2009

In Full Bloom





For the last three years I have tinkered around with growing veggies, always have good luck with peppers, but tomatoes....they are my nemesis. I learned early that Iowans have gardening easy; you turn the sod, plant in the spring, pull some weeds and harvest in late summer. Here the growing season is year around, which is great, but you have to get plants in at just the right time. And there is no organic matter in the soil. They recommend growing tomatoes in pots because the soil is so nutrient deficient and if you do plant in soil, they recommend dousing them in fertilizer.

Mu goal this year is to go 100% organic in the yard. This spring I had a huge compost pile ready so Jared and I laid out a small 4'x8’ plot just to test how things would do in the ground. I assumed everything would die, so we just went down to Houston garden center and got a bunch of $1.25 plants (Houston garden center is the equivalent of low quality street drugs to a heroine addict, it feeds my gardening addiction for cheap) … Our result, 5 monstrous tomatoes plants! So much for the peppers this year, I think the tomots took everything over.


This week we had the first fruits and they were amazing, although I think only one actually made it to the kitchen, several times I found the girls sitting next to the patch devouring anything that was red….not that I can get mad at my kids for eating raw veggies. Hopefully by the end of next week, those little dollar plants will be in full production.

2 comments:

Marby said...

That looks pretty amazing Emm. You will have to hold another class for enrichment or something. Share your newly acquired secrets.

Jane Ellis said...

The best way to support your tomato plants is with The Tomato Stake.

Easier to use than metal cages or upside down planters, stronger than bamboo and won't rot like wood stakes. The built-in twist-tie supports make tying your tomato plants easy!