Garden 2017

I don't have any pictures but we're planting 30 tomato plants this year ( Goliath) with one hot pepper plant and some sweet basil.

Last year when we bought our tomato plants, over half ended up being cherry tomato plants so we purchased this years from a guy we bought the plants from our first year.

We plant in five gallon buckets, the first year the Goliath plants were great but we only did six.

This morning I bought the plants and then put the fence up, cleaned the buckets and filled them with dirt. Tomorrow I'll plant 15 and then go get another 15 stakes off some fallen trees, everything should be planted on Monday by the end of the day.

 

30 huh?
Take pics of the haul, cause it's gonna be huge.
I see canning in your future.

 

If all goes well with the plants, how many quarts do you think we might get....48?

I'll have pictures.

 

Oh heck, no clue. It's been decades since I did any canning.
I just know 30 plants will give you lots of maters.......I'm sure you do too.

 

thats a lot of plants.good luck

 

Just got in Woods and there are 24 mixed tomatoes in the ground and a half dozen crazy hot pepper plants installed for the guys at work to do their yearly competition at lunch time.

Calling for a decent summer rain wise but will have to wait and see if it gets as dry as last years.

 

I grew my tomato seedling in my greenhouse from seed. I have had so many tomato crops fail. Usually some kind of wilt or fungus. I am growing from seed because I don't want to bring home some disease from imported plants. This year, my plan is to grow tomatoes in WalMart bags, Those blue ones you buy at the checkout for 5o cents. I think they hold about 5 gallons. I plan to fill the bags half full of soil and composted manure. As the plants grow, I will fill up the bags to encourage root growth along the stock. Should be interesting. I've grown them in buckets. This will be my first time in bags. I saw some clips on YouTube showing this being done. I also set out some Atlantic pumpkins. Those are the ones that can grow to 800 lbs. Lots more garden to plant, but I go slow with it. I should have it all in by the end of the week. My 6 and 7 yr old grandkids have been helping me.

 

20 mater plants here....bought them off an old boy that has a little greenhouse. Plants are called Israel tomatoes and mortgage lifters. Story is he has been growing the same maters for about 30 years, he had a fellow that brought some seeds from a trip to Israel back home and the others came from another old boy from West Virginia that grew maters on the side and sold them to pay off his mortgage.
16 Big Bertha peppers, 8 zucchini and 4 bush cucumbers.

 

30 plants should give a lot of tomatoes.
But if you core, peel, remove all the defects and any that are cracked exposing the innards to can only the cleanest and best of the best you can have depressingly little left.
Or have a drought like we did last year and end up with a BER, blighted mess. I had two 60 foot rows of tomatoes last year and ended up with just a little bit of salsa.
Counting tomatillos I might have thirty this year. I start my own from seed and give a lot away.

Now I'm going to have to go count to see just what I've ended up with.
I've been planting in the garden in spurts when I've decided a batch of tomatoes are struggling root bound and either have to go in the cold ground or into bigger pots.

 

Yeah, lots of tomatoes.......IF they all survive and produce.
Hey, a little salsa is better than no salsa.
Gardening is a crapshoot. We thought for sure we'd bunnyproofed our garden this year, but I went out there a couple days ago and saw a bunny making a mad dash across the garden.

 

You tell Judy the camera came with directions! The pie sounds great, what else did you have with it?

I did plant 16 tomato plants before I headed back in the woods for more stakes for the rest of the tomato plants. I cut another 16 from a downed Hemlock. If it's not raining real hard I'll finish tomorrow or later today when the sun starts going down.

 

WOW
should get at least 10 pounds off each plant
300 lbs +
Your area, maybe try a few varieties to find which ones grow well.
Try an Early Girl & 4th of July, work well for cooler nights & have good flavor.
Nights above 60° is key for some varieties,

I have to grow cucumbers, peppers & tomatoes in a Green House
This years 4th of July :

 

I've never seen a rabbit here and the last two years we've never had a problem. The first year we had a garden in buckets, we had a chit load of rain so I used the method described in the video which worked out great. We never lost a plant or had any disease.

 

Last year the place we bought the tomato plants had over half of ours wrong (ended up with a chit load of cherry tomatoes) so this year we bought ours from the Amish where we bought them our first year so they're all Goliath.

 

If things go well this year with the tomatoes then the area that holds 6 f/c of should season wood will be gone so we can expand the garden. We'll still have room for 6 f/c of shoulder season wood across from the area we'll get rid of.

 

You can always stick any tomato prunings in water or wet soil and have more plants.
I've had a bit better luck letting the suckers get 6 or 8 inches long before snapping them off to clone with.

You might not be wanting to clone in August but I've done it in May and June with good luck. They catch right up.

 

I like the idea of spraying with baking soda to prevent disease. So much better than some of those things that are from chemical companies, or using GMO products.
I also go around and plant garlic cloves. Seems to discourage a host of other problems. There are so many things to help your garden which are easily found in a lot of kitchens. Might not be as effective as the chemicals, might have to be applied more often, but they are cheap and won't poison your food. Because we are usually dealing with backyard gardens, commercial products can often be avoided.

 

Yea
I have several clones potted up to put in the garden.
pluck the suckers, stick them in pots full of compost & water.


They grow well in raised beds, but ripening the fruit is slow &
many times we get frost the end of August,
Last year was good for outdoor tomatoes here, this year, not expecting much

Cucs doing well: