The plot is roughly 4 meters (about 13 feet) square. There are 3 more. Click to thicken the plot.Can you see how rocky our soil is? And this is after about seven years of gardening in this spot, removing rocks, adding compost, etc. The soil looks dark because we water it, and this photo was taken soon after a weeding session, so it looks pretty neat. If we didn't water it, that soil would look (and feel) like concrete. There are also a bunch of marigolds in there among the tomatoes.
I don't know which varieties are which, but this year we've planted eight kinds of tomato. I love the names: Rutgers, Roma, Brandywine, Sweetie, Juliet, Yellow (how boring), Noire de Crimée, and Fiorentina.
Hope you took your umbrella and tap shoes on your walk with Callie so you could do a fabulous rendition of "Singing In The Rain"!
ReplyDeleteLooks good! I love the look of the spiral tomato stakes in the pic.
ReplyDeleteLove the stakes and the names of the plants. We get Brandywine from the farm, but I don't know the others. Wishing your garden growing mercies this year.
ReplyDeleteNoire de Crimée make fabulous "Sweet Pickled Tomatoes" - great with cold meats and strong cheeses.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to plant marigolds around and in gardens that bare vegetables. Insects and bugs don't like the aroma or taste of marigolds. A natural repellent.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen any stakes like those spirals--they have a real elegance about them. How far into the earth do you have to anchor them? I assume you kind of screw them into the ground?
ReplyDeleteMy horticulture professor told us that most gardeners really know how to grow rocks... At least they felt that way because the rocks just kept coming up through the soil no matter how many they kept taking out each year.
ReplyDeleteI like those spirals, too! I am curious to see the plants later in the season; obviously they must support the tomatoes or you wouldn't use them, it just doesn't seem like the same amount of support as a tomato cage.
I'm not familiar with the Sweetie, Juliet, Noir de Crimée or the Fiorentina varieties. I guess I should have just listed the few I know (!)
Your plot looks very nice, Walt.
cheryl, not this time. The rain stopped about halfway through the walk so we didn't get too soggy.
ReplyDeletebuddybear, they're neat, eh?
kristi, I don't know most of them (except the Roma), so it's always a surprise.
tim, that sounds good!
mike, that's what I've always heard, so I do it. :)
will, the bottom is not spiral, but straight, so it just gets shoved into the ground until the spiral part begins.
mary, I am very good at growing rocks. I should make stone soup! The tomatoes get pruned to one vertical stem that I wrap around the spiral and tie to the stakes, so they support them pretty well.