A few more~

Top pic is a couple of the tomato cages, there are twelve of them all grouped together in four rows, these are the first two rows.

Bottom is a before shot of Bullfrogs next engine, once I clean it up, get a starter, paint it, and run a pair of open headers. 3 more HP, and one more cylinder!!!

~ I think it's about an 800 cc engine...

 

Picked up some teeny-tiny flower pots that come with seeds and some dried potting soil at Target yesterday....30% off so 70 cents each. Tomatoes, oregano, basil, bell peppers and cherry tomatoes. I think they will be neat to have some fall veggies.

 

I have to ask.......is having 18 tomato plants too many? HAHA I love them and think I got every kind I could find. I also make a mean salsa, so we have tons of peppers too.

 

No such thing as too many tomatoes.......

I have a neverending bowl of fresh salsa in the fridge ALL summer.....chips, omelets, wraps....you name it. I give a bunch away too. Now I WANTED to start canning 'maters last year, but the jungle rot got to my plants (as it did to many, many others.........) and I didn't have any kind of a bumper crop......just enough to pick a few off of the plants each day......Sucked.

Hopefully this summer will be different. I LOVE them. Salads. 'Mater sandwiches. Just eating sliced with salt. All the other crap I mentioned above.....

 

HERE's an old goody for ya - you can get the album it was on online if your fave record store doesn't have it, it's by Guy Clark:

Homegrown Tomatoes
( by Guy Clark )

Chorus:
Home grown tomaters, home grown tomaters...
Where would I be without home grown Tomaters???
There's only two things that money can't buy -
~ And that's true love and home grown tomaters!!!


There's nothin' in the world that I like better than
Bacon, and lettuce, and home grown tomaters!!!
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Pick you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un...

Plant 'em in the springtime eat 'em in the summer,
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer...
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big 'un!

CHORUS

You can go out and eat 'em for sure,
There's nuthin' a home grown tomato won't cure...
You can put em in a salad, put em in a stew -
You can even make your very own tomato juice...

You can eat em with eggs, you can eat em with gravy
You can eat em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle

CHORUS

If I could change this life I lead,
You could call me Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs,
It's home grown tomatoes in every yard you see

When I die don't bury me -
In a box in a cold dark cemetery!
Out in the garden would be much better,
Where I could push up them home grown tomaters...

CHORUS




I wasn't real sure I was going to do good this year with the tomatoes - last year was dismal, but they are in a new spot with better soil AND I am paying them a lot more attention this year. Another real big deal with me is the cucumbers - for all my work I got ONE (!!!) last year...

As in UNO, SINGLE, SOLO, ein...

This time around will be different. If I make any cash at it, it will go to putting aside about a ton and a half of soil ammendments for the next years efforts. Peat moss, manure, clippings, chipped wood, PEARLITE - whatever it takes!

Two big differences this year are the plastic weed barrier (Yeah...), and also spot fertilization with two kinds of water soluable fertilizer (Miracle Grow). The general kind for most of the veg plants, and tomato specific just for them!

Instead of throwing fertiliser all over the place, I mix a few gallons at a time and give each plant IN IT'S SPOT just the right amount once every two weeks. That has turned out to make the fertiliser last a whole lot longer, since I only use what is needed exactly WHERE it is needed. There's no reason to fertilise where nothing is growing, I want it all right where the roots of things are, so that what I WANT to grow can pick it up...


I'm really getting a bit excited about my summer squash and zuchini this year - I have never seen them get this huge before, they are already waist high! (Bottom pic is a Zuchini w/ 24" leaves) and they're still only just getting started...

~Wolf


PS: FRIED GREEN TOMATOES

Slice a few green tomatoes
Make a batter out of three eggs, and some water (and or milk)
Put about two cups of corn meal in a paper bag with some garlic and salt
Dip the tomater slices in the batter...
Drop them in the bag and shake them to coat them with corn meal

(Flour can be used, or "MASA HARINA" which is very fine corn flour)

Fry them in a skillet with oil, or alternately bake them in an oven on a flat metal sheet

GOOD STUFF!!!

 

Well here are some of my smaller tomato plants, I couldnt get them all as I have tons haha.
The raised bed has some herbs and peppers and there are some other veggies at the end.

 

That's about as purdy a raised-bed/container veggie garden as I've seen in awhile. Kudos, Scott.

 

Well it looks alittle RED to me, but I had to come up with something to keep the dogs and tree rats (squirrels) out of it. Bought rolls of the fencing cut in half to use as much as I could. The wood was left over from the cabanna I build and worked nicely as walls.

 

I wish I had soil that looked as good as what you have in those beds - it'll take truckloads of stuff to get mine the way it needs to be, and that will take time and at least one more tax return to get there...

 

You need to clean a stable and put the remnants in the garden, you can grow a cabbage on a rock with a little BS, look how well it works in Washington.

 

This must be squash weather---my zuchinni plants have gone crazy! I've got to take some pics and post them. Very impressive pics posted so far! My plants are green with envy...

 

Dads Okra is a bust, up/down temps ruined it, time for a replant, but peas are doing great.

 

On that topic - at the "FriendlyGardener" forums, there was a question about tomatoes that bud out, but drop the flowers without setting any fruit. The answer is that wide temperature swings stress the plants, and they ditch their flowers in order to focus on survival.

Excess water, night temps below 55, and daytime temps above 90 are supposedly bad for them too - but mine will be in 90+ heat all the rest of this year.

 

Yep, 45 degrees at night, days went over 80, it's gotta be replanted.

 

I'm doing it too - some of my planting spots the soil was too hard for the seeds to get up out of it. That points to the advantage of loose dirt that allows seeds to come up without hassle. THAT is why ammendments that break up the soil are good.

But you can also make six inch spots that are filled with potting soil for seeds to sprout in...

Shucks, I'm looking at all kinds of ways to make it all work

Bless my plants, in spite of the soil
Bless my truck that burns gas and oil
Bless my tractor in spite of bad gas
And mister Obama can KISS MY...