Tomato Humble Pie

I may have come off like a know-it-all gardener.  My apologies.  I had to admit some mistakes today.

See, my Early Girl has had fruit since the last week of June.  I was excited, thinking I would get to have my first tomato on July 4, like most years.  Not.  Few issues.

First, I didn't quite have the directions quite right when I drew up my plan.  Rather than the front of the row of tomatoes catching the morning sun and the back of the row basking in the afternoon sun... I am off enough that some plants are pretty much in part-shade, rather than full sun.  That would not be the end of the world, except...

Second, my mini-ecosystem method created a jungle, which is fine...when it is getting the sun properly, and when the zuke isn't growing ever taller nearby, and the butternut squash isn't sending up shooters into the tomato trellises.  Instead, I have part-shade+ inside the row, and the indeterminate plants are shooting legs everywhere attempting to get the proper sun, which shades further the plant next to it.  Again, this wouldn't necessarily mean the end of the world, although it makes it challenging, especially since...

Third, we have had the coolest and dampest June-into-July that I can remember.  I almost never have to water, which is nice, but we're getting cloudy days mostly.  So, cool temps and not a huge amount of direct sunlight.

I spent almost two hours trimming back on the creepers and such, re-training some of the legs to go elsewhere, and...gulp, actually removing one entire plant.  I collected the green fruit from that plant and have it sitting in the window at home, hoping that they might ripen.  I am not holding my breath.

Tomatoes never come when you think they should.  On top of that, I planted two weeks later than I usually do.  That makes a big difference, especially when the weather has been so odd.  My husband suggested that maybe the tomatoes are being considerate, and holding off on exploding with Romas until we are moved and truly settled.  And truly, I know that middle August is when I usually start panicking with the volume of tomato production and get into a twice-weekly canning routine.

Arrogance and impatience are my tomato sins.  The plants are doing well.  There is little sign of insects (so far, ha ha) and no sign of serious tomato diseases.  The plants are healthy.  They'll give me tomatoes when they are good and ready.

And when summer comes and stays.

The Squash that Ate My Garden

Back in May, I planted 2 rows of spaghetti squash and 3 of butternut, expecting not every seed to thrive. The Boy had 5 birdhouse gourds planted around his tee-pee, where they could climb the posts and the string wound between them.  He also planted 2 giant pumpkins.  We had 2 volunteer something-or-others that could have been melons or squash based on how they looked back when we were planting.

Everything has survived.  I had to thin my winter squashes down to 2 spaghetti and 3 butternut plants total, since every seed I'd planted had sprouted.  I had to spend about an hour today untangling the 5 squashes, and intervening in their attacks on marigolds, nasturtiums, the 2 zucchini plants, all the tomatoes, and the cucumbers across the aisle in the next bed.  The birdhouse gourds were spreading out rather than up, so had to be trained up.  The pumpkins know no borders, and had spread into the grass.  The 2 volunteers whatevers have been identified as yellow squash (also called crookneck)  They are attaching to mulch, birdhouse gourds, popcorn cornstalks, and anything that doesn't move fast enough to escape.

Oh.  I forgot.  A volunteer squash has devoured the compost heap.

In the meantime, I have about 80 pounds of zucchini that must be eaten or stored.  I am gonna be able to get the guys to eat the zucchini if I make it Parmesan, along with some kind of meat.  Venison and Zucchini Parmesan?  But that is only gonna go so far.  I intended to make a huge batch of ratatouille to freeze...except for one small problem.  While my tomato plants are now taller than me, are growing thickly enough that they are great shade, and have tons of fruit ripening... they are not ripe yet.  So, I'll have to either try to save the zukes for another week and gamble that I'll have enough tomatoes to make ratatouille... Or I'm gonna have to buy some.  Sigh.

On the plus side, I saw fresh zukes at the grocery store selling at $1.99 a pound!  Take that!  Never mind that I would never choose to buy 80 pounds of zucchini.

City Kitty Dresses for the Farm

I spent last evening with a group of girlfriends.  We were drinking wine (we polished off about 4 bottles) and eating wonderful food, enjoying the sunset over the mountains.  I was glamorous in my white tunic paired with a floor length black "skirt with a slit up to your butt," as one of them put it.  (I cheerfully replied that my butt did not sag that low, if at all.)  My hair was in a sleek pony tail, and I accessorized with black sandals with gorgeous silver buckles and my favorite hoop earrings.

The topic of spiders came up as we sat outside on the deck.  I shared how, last weekend at the farm, I was weeding along a fence line when a huge spider crawled across my arm.  I'd shrieked and flung him away, and then burst into wild laughter, my husband just shaking his head.  One of my friends HATES spiders, and she couldn't understand how I could be so casual about a huge wolf spider crawling up my arm.

Farm Fashion

I had forgotten to describe my gardening attire.  I described it and watched her eyes get bigger and bigger as I painted the picture.  You see, this is what my son and I look like when we go to the farm, ever since the first weekend, when we found a tick on Daddy, and I got my first sunburn in ages.

My son picking blackberries

Big floppy hats.  I love them.  The sunglasses are 100% blah blah blah, and the sunscreen is SPF 50.  My over-shirt is one my husband's retired work shirts--heavy poplin and oversize to catch the breeze even when buttoned.  The boy's over-shirt (not pictured) is oversize... for now.  Both have been treated with permethrin.  I wear a tank under so when I am under a tree hydrating, I can cool down more quickly.  My cell phone has to be in a safe place so I can receive texts from the husband on the other side of the property.  Long-cuffed leather gloves (goat leather in the palm) are great for weeding, planting, watering, and protecting against spiders crawling up my arm.  The capri-length jeans have also been treated with permethrin, good for up to 40 days.  (The boy picked his almost too-short camo pants for treatment.)  The heavier material also protects against thorns.  Finally, the rainboots to wade through mushy straw and protect against ticks.

Okay, do we look funny?  Oh yes.  Do the big shirt and jeans show off my figure very well?  Not even a little.  But I don't have to spray bug repellent on me now, and I can avoid a lot of sun and thorns, as well as itchy plants.  So far, no mosquitoes, ticks, or poison ivy.


For the record, I didn't plan to have my tank top match the boots.  I promise. And I don't always wear earrings. 

Gardening Triumphs and Trials

I love this part of gardening.  You spend 6 hours over the course of a day: watering, working hard, relaxing some, returning to work, hiking around the farm to see the fawn the husband almost runs over with a tractor, come back to the garden to weed the last section, cleaning before you leave, and see that the tiny curl of green that was just breaking through the soft earth has progressed to a stem and a leaf.  And then you come back two days later, and the stem and leaf has turned into three leaves, and you realize that every seed you planted, expecting only about half to actually germinate, has emerged and how can you possibly THIN them out!

Well that is easy.  Wait for the pests to thin the herd a little.

6 hot peppers

After the marathon planting, I mulched.  I use straw.  Yeah, I know it is ugly, but it is easy and it works.  I am a lazy gardener, remember?  If I don't have to weed, I am happy.  We are still waiting on some slow germinating seeds to show, but in the end, we'll use 3 bales to begin the season.  I expect to have to add another layer of straw later on, but for now, I am pleased.  Here's how the hot pepper bed looked after I added straw.  We did wind up using an old bale to fill in the paths.  I didn't know when I planned the garden about the tiny but definitely present slope to the land.  Squishy straw is kinda fun to walk on.  Kinda.

All but two of the squash seeds I planted came up.  I was shocked.  (But, as my country kitty friend pointed out:  "You might still get squash bugs.")  I only mulched between the rows, but soon I'll add between the plants.  The nasturtium seeds are coming up as well, although you cannot see them well in the picture.

AND... we have our first cucumber!  Never mind that it is about as long as my knuckle!  It is cute and looks strangely like an alien pod.  Hmm.  Better check that variety again.  What if it is one of those pods from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers?  I might have a job for them...

Because the mother@$&%$% bunnies got in and thinned the lettuce and ate ONLY my borage.  Wait.  Did I say ate?  Nope.  It only chewed through the thorny stem and left it there.  I will let my dog loose-- she is a verified bunny killer.  And I will string them up so their rotting carcasses will serve as a warning.... Okay, so the borage won't be able to help my tomatoes and squash after all.  I may attempt to replant, but not until we have the bunny issue resolved.

Mutilated Borage

My husband had cleverly set up his game camera in the garden, just to see what was going on.  So, when I discovered the beheaded borage, I was able to look at the images within an hour.  We saw that the bunnies (two of the rotten beasts!) entered from the gate, which already had wire down to the ground, but had a small gap between the two doors.  I thought and thought about how to fix the "leak" without impeding access to the garden for people and equipment.

Here was my solution.

I had a length of chicken wire.  I laid it flat, and added a long metal fencing stake about six inches from the bottom, with the spiky bit facing through the wire.  I wrapped the excess around the ends, and then folded the bottom into an angle.  It rests against the gate from the outside.  The tall wire we hooked into nails that were already there, and then stamped down on the part laying flush (spiky bits down) with the ground.  It won't work for long, but it is a good temporary step.  I hope.

My Garden, Part 1

So, for a city kitty, I cannot claim to be unfamiliar with vegetable gardening.  The city's parks and rec has a Garden Plot area, where you can register for a 20'x20' plot.  We did that for 3 or 4 years (Before Child, in other words).  I grew tomato, pepper, lettuce, spinach, squash, flowers, corn (sorta), beans, broccoli, and carrots.  I checked out a book from the public library and learned how to can.  I know canning is trendy right now, but I did that back in 2002.

After Child, I moved on to different kinds of vegetable gardening in much smaller spaces.  Tomatoes in deep pots, lazy beds of greens, peas with trellises of corn, melons (that were devoured by the @#$^$% groundhogs), and even strawberries in cute pots.

Now, I get to go larger scale again.  At the farm, I'll have a bed of 11'x20' as part of an enclosed garden with deer fencing.  I love planning out my plot: digging out my lazy gardening and companion planting books*, scaling the plan on graph paper (3/8 scale, thank you very much), and drawing with colored pencil exactly where and what and how many I will be planting.

Garden plot 2013

I've learned that LOTS of critters hate marigolds.  So I put a border of marigolds around my plot.  They also attract butterflies and bees.  At the bottom, you see my tomato bed, mostly Roma for canning salsas, marinara, and whole tomatoes.  Really close together, right?  I learned from my deep pot tomato planting (and from lazy gardening sources) that creating an ecosystem for the plants can help the plants produce better.  (The downside is that it can endanger the plants if any have disease or a bug infestation... but more on that later.)

Above the tomatoes, I have a row of nasturtiums.  Pretty and attractive to pollinators, true, but they also repel certain pests.  Interspersed, you see some red X's-- borage, another flowering herb that attracts bees and butterflies and repels slightly different pests.

Above that, 2 zukes, and then 2 varieties of winter squash that I love to eat, but have never tried growing:  butternut and spaghetti.

We finally get to a planned path, and I've created a bed for carrots, the plan being I will sow every two weeks later in the growing season.  Another path, and then the top two beds:  one for hot peppers (serrano is my choice, but I will take what I can find as long as it's hot!) and then another larger bed for cukes, and corn with peas planted later.

Ambitious?  Perhaps.  The proof will be in the planting.

*Here are my favorite books, although I have about a dozen more.  I've added links to Amazon in case you are interested.  I also use a book about growing fruits and vegetables in my state-- mighty handy!
Tips for the Lazy Gardener by Linda Tilgner
Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte

Hello... or, Howdy! (An Introduction)

I have always lived in the city.  Well, at least suburbia.  Towns.  Small cities.

This summer, it looks as though I will be living on a 10 acre farm in the country.  I'll have a tractor, chickens, a garden as big as I choose to make it, and a pond!  Maybe a sheep!

There will also be ticks and spiders and stinkbugs.  And mice.  Possums.  Deer.  Maybe even some otters!

Now, I love my high heels, my cute hats, and fancy purses.  But, I also love hiking and gardening, and I already have a dog!  So, I'm ready for this.  Right?

Right?

What is that chirping sound?  Birds?  Cicadas?  Crickets?  A chipmunk?

Well, at least this will be entertaining for my readers.  I'll take pictures, and describe what I am learning, and how I am surviving, and any other thing that will demonstrate my ability to laugh at myself.  Someone will learn something, and I suspect it will be me.

The move will be sometime in August.  Until then, posts may be sporadic.