The Year of the Tomato

Have you ever noticed that when all the right variables come together at just the right time, under just the right conditions, incredible things can happen? Well I believe that this is going to be one of those times.

Here are the variables as I see them:

1. After a really dry year last year, I learned my lesson and put in a drip system.
2. We started trying to be more conscientiousness and sustainable and started composting and amending the soil.
3. We put up the greenhouse which allowed us to start our tomatoes before the last frost of the winter.
4. The Atlanta summer has come in like a roaring lion!
5. At just the right times, we've gotten nice thunderstorms to add that little extra "umph" to our garden.

With all these lining up just right, I'm believing that we're going to have bumper crop of veggies, especially tomatoes. Just a feeling? I don't think so.

We're still a week away from summer and the plants are loaded down with green, pinkish, green and red striped, and full out red tomatoes.

The Mr. Stripy heirloom (pic at left) is making some very interesting and delicious looking striped tomatoes.

Our Big Boy tomato plant is so tall now that it has grown out of the top of the greenhouse and I'm resorting to tying the cage down so that the wind and rain doesn't topple the whole thing.

When we were on vacation last week in Seattle, I have to admit that I had black "dirt" envy. My son's garden looks like what mine would if I were to just use compost in my raised beds. But I must say that the blazing heat of the south surely makes good tomatoes.

The one Cherokee Purple plant is definitely in the running for the largest and darkest green tomatoes in the garden.

But the prize so far goes to the smallest of the lot. In less than a week of harvesting, we've already taken around 30 small but wonderfully flavored cherry red's off of a single bush and it is loaded with clumps of green fruit from top to bottom that have already proven to be great additions to salads.

I think my granddaughters tried these out before I did and were impressed.

I even have a couple of plants that have popped up in a flower pot in the front of the house. I thing they hitch-hiked from some of the dirt that I brought from the woods at the back of our lot.

I truly think this will be the Year of the Tomato!

All I can say is "bring it on".

Chris

3GT

Don't Put Your Hand In The Bag!

It's fairly cheesy, I have to admit, but it is a catchy slogan!

Have you heard their commercials? "We're number 1 in the number 2 business". The cow on the purple bag and all... very catchy.

If you haven't seen it yet, I'm talking about the organic compost with cow manure called Moo-nure. Even before I had heard the commercials, I'd purchased several bags of this to work into my garden this year, since my compost wasn't ready in the early spring.

I had about a half of a bag of moo-nure sitting open between my two raised beds, just waiting for me to re-work the soil for my bell pepper plants that a friend gave me. With my 4 year old grand daughter in tow, I proceeded to empty the soil from one of last year's smart pots and was having her "help" me.

We got the soil into the wheel barrow and I explained that we were going to add the "cow poo" to the soil to help the plants to grow. I reached down and grabbed the bag of moo-nure and dumped the remainder of what hadn't been used on to of the soil already in the wheel barrow.

I'm a big guy from the south and don't get startled easily but when all of the contents came out of the bag, I really didn't expect a 14 inch long snake to come out! Sorry, no pics... my daughter, who attempted a pic later, had taken the memory card out of her camera. Just to be clear... I'd seen the snake around the garden the week before. It was NOT packaged in the bag!

The 4 year old thought it was pretty cool, went and got sister, mom and grandmom (who, by the way HATES snakes). After my daughter came out (who, by the way LIKES snakes), we agreed that it wasn't poisonous and, much to my wife's chagrin, picked up the snake and promptly threw it up into the woods behind my house.

Moral of this story, don't put your hand in an opened bag of cow poo ... or something like that.

3GT

Chris