The Garden extends to a tomato under the kitchen window.. The story on this plant is as follows.. We went to Home Depot in Sterling and we were looking around and mom bought this tomato plant because it was screaming to her to buy it.. I never heard any plants screaming to me to buy it but then I wasn't listening it was after all the first of May and I can ignore screams from the plants because of the date.. I don't plant anything before Mother's day and anymore I wait until Memorial weekend.. This year it was the next weekend and I'm glad I waited.. It snowed the Wednesday before Memorial Day.. And it was a wet weekend as well causing the all out cancellation of the ceremonies in just about every town around us.. Hard to say what the snow would have done to this plant had it been planted early..
Here we have what is called the Caspian Pink... A very nice variety I have had before some eight or so years ago.. This thing should produce fairly large yet strange looking fruit...
The Earth box planter.. Last year I wanted the same exact variety in the box and thought I had them.. Turns out I didn't and waited a year.. These are Containers Choice variety.. The same tomato variety, times two.. Usually I have the main two tomatoes in the Earth box but this year I went with the exact same variety.. Cross pollination was the reason for this idea.. A couple years ago I had a Roma and a cherry (I think) and so the Romas were smaller and more round rather than long.. They were still very good but ... You know.. i hadn't ever thought of cross pollinating.. Well I thought of it but thought no way.. But turns out that likely happened.. These had the instructions of being planted up to two feet apart.. These aren't they are around a foot and a few inches.. They have a serious stalk on them, kinda like the Patio planter variety.. Those were very good and would have been in here this year but for the fact that I saw the Containers choice variety last year, and got them this year..
Grass man.. There were areas of the lawn this year that didn't recover from the winter, and under the clothesline was one of them.. This area was dead looking until the very first of June.. I took the weed eater and scalped the area, about the way it shows here.. It was much bigger of an area then and I seeded it with spot grass seed, which is to say spot grass seed is to have a quick grass grow, but I'm not sure it is supposed to last.. It didn't grow very well as what grew there were nasty weeds that produce stickers or thorns.. I decided after the luck I was having in the front to try to do this spot here in the back.. The preparation was to scalp it again but this time I had nothing but trouble as the weed eater string kept breaking.. So rather than have a giant area, it was smaller.. Hoping it will grow back with more grass than weeds..
This area is what I call the Gas Meter tomato area.. Mostly because the gas meter is withing a mouses fart.. This was going to be between two to four plants and the reason I decided to plant there is.. Well the grass was weeds and it was hard to keep it watered there.. What makes the tomatoes different?? Well the soaker tubing, if grass was this easy to water in that corner it would still be grass.. I have figured out how to get the grass to grow there and so it will return to lawn next year..
They are a nice set of plants.. There are two Roma variety tomato plants and one moby grape meaning cherry but bigger...
Looks like three might be almost too many?? But the planting area was shrunk after the third plant was added.. There wouldn't be a forth.. There could have been.. But there has to be a shut off point..
They are growing quite well in this section.. And the soil is quite wet.. The grass clippings are wicking very well.. That was the reasoning with putting the clippings there.. That and trying to control the weeds.. Which is a strike out.. The weeds are still growing possibly even happier than before..
The ally planting area.. Back in the earlier days, shortly after getting it built, we had this area and tried to grow tomato plants in there.. They rarely grew very well mostly because of the trees that were growing there.. I think I tried only the one year to try to grow them there.. But since the trees have skedaddled, there has been other things tried to be planted there.. The past few years have been weeds which were very happy growing crops there.. I can grow weeds.. Then one year there were sunflowers, that was the year I had twelve footers everywhere.. Here is pumpkins.. Three plants as a matter of fact.. Four seeds were sown, three plants emerged.. Not a bad average.. But not a good thing that happened either..
The pumpkins got nailed by pea sized Sunday night.. Any hail isn't good and if you look closely you can see pin holes in the leaves.. The past few times I have tried to grow pumpkins the fruits (pumpkins) rotted on the vine.. Last year I had several that were growing huge but then they desolved on the vine.. What happened?? From what I could tell I over watered them.. Same thing could happen this year.. I have the tomatoes and the pumpkins on the same irrigation system.. I'm hoping to use grass clippings to help with the watering via keeping the ground wet longer and keeping me from watering as much..
What I called the bench planting area.. Right behind the bench is where two tomato plants were placed.. Now this is a mistake that shows very obviously.. The pumpkin will take over the tomato unless I can redirect it to grow elsewhere.. There were two tomato plants there, of nearly the same variety.. Were two plants there.. Something happened to one of them and I turned off the watering system.. It hasn't changed the way it looks and it is now gone from the mix.. The pumpkins were an afterthought, added mostly because I wanted to see if they would grow there..
The leaves on the pumpkins are HUGE.. And the variety is the big variety.. A different one from any other year, they are supposed to be award winners but I'll be happy if they grow well..
Here on this side near to the camera is the tomato that has been shut down.. What happened to it?? Hard to say.. It might just be the wrong variety for the area.. Or I screwed up while planting it.. I don't know for sure..
These pumpkins are in what I called the pumpkin patch.. This is where it all started, this is where they grew into the ally, up to the shop doors of the welder next door... And they grew up the tree as well..
pock marks in the leaves of the pumpkin plants.. What this will mean for the plants later on?? I'm not sure, likely no records on size..
Five pumpkins in the pumpkin patch.. What was I thinking?? What was I thinking?? Well I was thinking I'll thin them out..
Yep I'm a great one for thinning them seeing as how I've never thinned anything.. That's why most people do pray for hail to do it for them..
I never trust a hail storm, and therefor hope it never hails..
Weeding the pumpkin patch.. Well I try to weed them as much as can be early on but as we get into August I leave them alone figuring they must be getting along..
The pumpkin patch, as well as the ally planter was going to be tilled all summer, there was not going to be anything planted in any of those.. The gas meter planting are was a one off to see if I could plant anything there and then get it to grow.. and as I was trying to decide how big that would be it was going to be quite bigger than it ended up.. Initially it was going to be about exactly the size it is, but then I got this wild idea to try to make it twice and then nearly ten times bigger thinking the entire under the clothesline area could be made into a garden of sorts with tomatoes and corn being planted there.. But then logic took control and the size it was going to be originally is the size it would be.. Thankfully..
Now when all is said and done the plants were still available at Walmart just about July 4th this year..
Also we went to Home Depot and they still had quite a few plants.. Flowers we were told would be available through Labor Day.. That's nice to know..
A word about the irrigation system.. It is mostly soaker tubing.. Now there were issues with the tubing, but that was overcome and life is good still to this day.. Why soaker tubing?? Well it gets the water where I want it, and doesn't spray it.. that is very important.. This year there is a different element to the watering.. In the early days of it, i went without watering restrictions which is to say full flow rate.. That was blowing the corner splice and making that impossible to be trusted.. I put a watering restricter or a washer that slows the flow from open to a certain number of gallons per hour.. When I saw the flow rate I thought everything is going to burn this year. Not the case.. in previous years I would water for fifteen minutes two to three times a day.. that was great.. Now I water once a day, for half an hour or longer depending on the temperature.. Gardening is a learning experience, and I watch videos on YouTube to see other ideas.. And everything I do changes evetry season and sometimes several times a season.. You need heat and as of today we are having a nice cooling off and for me that means water the lawn and catch up to what is needed.. We got an inch and a tenth last night, which means no watering needed for a week.. For me it means no watering needed for a week except for areas sheltered by trees which will be spot watered by Friday..
Currently I still am trying to mow the lawn at the highest setting on the mower.. The idea when I got this mower with the grass catcher was to use the grass catcher five times total.. But that was before I put in the garden, I have used the grass catcher all but three times so far this season.. Meaning the grass clippings are more important than anyone else thinks they are.. I will try to mow without the catcher through all of August but I needs the clippings for the pumpkin patch..
Badge Henry
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