It's time for tomatoes!
You might remember last Mother's Day, when all I asked for was a garden. I never dreamed this little plot of land could produce such bounty.
May 8, 2011
The seedlings went in shortly after and the mushroom compost was spread around to keep the weeds in control and nourish the plants. (The mushroom compost is the only fertilizer we used.) I bought so many plants, I had to give some away, but I packed as many in the garden as I could.
May 23, 2011
A little more than 3 weeks later on June 15th - I think that rate of growth could break a record - in my garden anyway. It's so green and lush. They look happy.
June 15, 2011
Here they are, another three weeks later on July 5th, the day before we left on a 2-week vacation to the other side of the country. Are you kidding me? I was stunned at how well the garden was doing. The plants were loaded with green tomatoes. I hated to leave it.
July 5, 2011
When we returned home, the tomatoes were just beginning to ripen. The beefsteak tomatoes were so big that after a heavy rain, the plants and stakes just couldn't support them anymore. They toppled over and have taken over our sidewalk. We'll just walk around for now. There's just no moving them, or the stems would break. The tomatoes from these plants are huge. Some have been eaten by chipmunks, but there are so many tomatoes, I don't even mind sharing.
August 12, 2011
There have been multiple days of harvesting, but here's what I picked on just one of those days...
The beefsteaks:
The plums:
Tomorrow, I'll show you a delicious tomato tart you can make with the bounty from your garden or farmer's market.
But guess what I'm doing today.
Canning, of course! And thinking of how nice it will be to have jars full of tomatoes for making wintertime soups and sauces.
I'd love to hear how your garden is doing!
Those look amazing! No problems with stink bugs or deer? We want to try growing tomatoes, but our abundance of critters makes us wonder if it's worth trying.
ReplyDeleteWe have a huge deer pest problem in Western PA, don't we? This garden is up on s terrace, so they'd have to go up a few steps and just haven't mustered the courage to do it- yet! The stink bugs are not a problem at all, but we did have some flea beetles and some tiny white aphids which I basically ignored. A few of the tomatoes got some spotty disease, so I dug them up. My eggplant and zucchini didn't fare so well either. Critters are definitely the number one problem we've had in gardening. You may have better luck if you plant close to the house, and consider a fence or I've heard that deer spray works ok too. You'll never know until you try!
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