The tale of a tomato named Paul

Hi my name is Robeson, Paul Robeson and this is my home.

I have lots of nice neighbors including my friends the Wynches-Dr. Wynche is on the left and her wife is on the right.

This is my friend Brandy Wine. Try not to stare, she was born like that.

Now I'm going to join my friend the Calebash, we're going on a trip to a big farm in the country where we can run and play. Well that's what the green chilies told me.

Garden update round 146

It occurred to me that I've only posted overview pictures of the garden for quite a while so here are a bunch of more detail pictures.

The herb square. We've seriously tried to keep up with the herbage including cutting a lot of tarragon last week to make vinegar (the oil experiment was tossed after a week because it was cloudy and I'm afraid of being the microbiologist who gives people botulism), cutting savory yesterday to dry, and putting parsley in pretty much everything we've been eating. The rosemary and chives are finally coming up in the center but you can't really see them in this picture

The main bed

We pulled the peas this past week and most of the kohlrabi so there isn't much going on in that bed other than baby edamame. We've replanted peas for round 2 in September and are still trying to decide what do do with the kohlrabi squares.

Dr. Wyches Yellow tomatoes

Purple Calabash, yippie. We lost all of the Purple calabash last year to curly top virus, so are excited to have healthy "ugly" tomatoes this year.

Speaking of ugly tomatoes, this was one of the first brandywine tomatoes to set. It's a mutant conjoined tomato but I expect it to taste just as good as the prettier brandywine...and it's huge already.

And finally, the midgets are starting to ripen.

Tomato pruning

We did some serious tomato pruning while we tied the new growth up. They look really good. It was hard at first to cut off perfectly healthy but it doesn't seem to beharming them at all. And the pruning has kept the plants from becoming an impenterable jungle which is should provide some blight resistance.

The plants are generally loading up on tomatoes (still not ripe). I can't say that there's any obvious difference between the number of tomatoes in the plants that have only one square foot opposed to two. There is a significant difference in the depth of the compost from west to east which complicates the comparison of the effect of space- the tighter spaced tomatoes are in the deeper soil. So is the apparent similarity in productivity due to unequal soil depth? Beats me. I do think that we'll change the layout next year so we don't have 2 rows of tomatoes adjacent to each other. It may not impact the productivity but it does make it difficult to see what each plant is doing, which is a big chunk of the fun.

Another garden update

It's been a week or so since I posted the last picture. We've picked a pint of raspberries basically every day this week. The peas are still producing but I expect them to start slowing down soon. The falls are mild enough here that we'll pull these peas and plant a second crop just before my next cruise (mid Aug). Every tomato plant has baby tomatoes-yippie. And I think that the peppers and chilies will flower this week.

The herbs are doing great as well. Actually they're doing too well, the chervil and cilantro had to be pulled because they bolted. We've ut the tarragon and are going to try to make herb oil. Stay tuned for the out come of this trial.

Garden ahoy

I've decided this is now the ahoy and aarrrggg blog. Enough of this nonsense. Check out the garden, it looks great and the lettuce and peas are yummy. The raspberries are going nuts and the blackberries will follow in a few weeks.

Last garden update for a few weeks

I'm currently waiting to board the ferry that will take us to the ship, so won't be seeing the garden for a few weeks. Before thairo left for the field earlier this week, we took out the little cold frames and put in the supports for the tomatoes and edemame.

Garden update

Everything is growing just fine, except for the one Paul Robson that
looked nearly dead when we planted it

Temporary tomato and pepper tents

Pretty much what the title says

Sickly seedlings

Our nursery was looking so good for the first month or so...but now, not so much. I think that they are seriously nutrient deficient. Yellow leaves indicate too little nitrogen and purple veins and stems low potassium?? We got some liquid plant fertilizer and are giving them a little each day, trying not to shock the plants anymore than they already have been. Any one have any other suggestions?

The garden plan

This past week we've been working on the garden (ok, he's been working, I've been thinking). Our little urban garden has gotten fairly big. I think that we are now pretty happy about the size of the garden and the number of plants we can have. So, we'll have two 4x4 foot beds, one 4x15 bed, and four containers.


Here's the plan, each square is one square foot. We're going to build trellises (trelli?) out of 1x2 pine boards for the tomatoes and peas.

We're trying replicate tomatoes, one of each variety in a single square foot and one in 2 square feet. That still doesn't seem like much room for a plant but apparently if we keep them pruned to just one or two main branches they'll be fine.

Garden is started

Quick garden update while the last few analyses run. Thairo planted tomato, pepper, and chili seeds that we had left over from last year. Some of the tomato sprouts were visible today: brandywine, purple calabash, and a mexican midget. We have an improvised nursery set up using a heating pad, aluminum foil, and a grow bulb. So far it seems that the heating pad is working, last year the mexican midget's took several weeks to sprout. The layout for the garden is still a work in progress but I'll post it once we have a reasonable draft done. We're trying square foot gardening this year, stay tuned for reports on how that's working out.