50% More Tomatoes

 

As you can see, our garden is still very dry and required the hauling of many buckets of water to keep all the tomato/cabbage/kohlrabi/pepper plants alive until next week when we can get down next. As you can probably see by  the water darkened spots, we have amassed quite a collection of them. A friend of ours who plants a big garden for charitable causes ended up with way to many tomato and pepper plants and asked if we could use some. Why yes we could, especially since they were twice the size of the ones growing in our garden currently. So we planted them. I don't know how many tomato plants are now growing out there but I'm guessing it is somewhere in the order of 40 or 50 plants. Way more than we will ever need if they all grow to maturity. But why not since we have the space and perhaps we can give them away to someone in need.

Our peas aren't doing too well in the dry soil and we will be lucky to harvest much from them. The radishes in the center row are doing quite well though. The mulched plants are strawberries and do have some fruit setting on them.

The right row are our first crop of regular potatoes we planted and are looking great. The center row of onions are likewise doing well. The left row are also potato and were an experiment. They were from a seed place that is trying to breed specifically for flavor as the top priority and were fairly expensive. We planted them a couple weeks after the other row of potatoes. They too are looking good and I can't wait to taste any differences to see if they were indeed worth the price.


This picture if for Steve who asked about how the asparagus looks when we stop picking it. Here it is starting to get more feathery looking like carrots and is nearly six feet tall. This will continue to thicken up as more shoots reach the point of bolting. We still were able to pick a large handful of smaller not yet bolting asparagus for our supper that night.


Another experiment we are doing this year is trying to grow cucumbers on one have of our trellis tunnel. I haven't raised cucumbers in many years and I have never raised them in a place where they could climb so we will see what they end up going.


The many peaches on our tree our getting bigger. 


The orchard is all leafed out and everything survived the winter thus far. From the foreground back are a row of plumcots, cherries and pear trees. I'm not sure we will add more tree or not this year. Maybe later if there is a sale on leftover fruit trees.

Unlike the first two rows above, the third row actually has three trees, pear trees. This is the third pear tree. Two years ago shortly after planting, I'm guessing a large bird of some sort sat on the main branch and broke it. I lopped the remains off and hoped one of the secondary branches below would become the main branch and it did. Earlier this spring, the large bird sat on one of the other branches and broke it off. Then this past week it did it again on the new main branch and broke it off. It has really destroyed the tree but I'm leaving it as is for now in hopes it doesn't try on of our other trees and break them too. This tree will probably succumb to some sort of illness due to it's now really shattered stump of a main trunk even if one of the remaining sub branches starts growing up as the main trunk again. I wish I knew what was breaking those branches. If I can remember, maybe I'll put up my game camera again.

Comments

  1. I understand that every gardener seems to grow radishes, but I always wonder what the heck you do with them. Obviously, they are not part of my diet. 🤪

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    1. They are certainly easy to raise. These are watermelon radishes, a fancy kind you sometimes see used in restaurants. My wife will probably give a lot away but for the most part, we have done a quick pickle on them and served them as a side to just about any meal. A couple nights ago, they were used as a topping on some authentic Mexican tacos we had.

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    2. I discovered this year that roasted radishes aren't bad at all. I prefer them that way.

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    3. Our strawberries are about gone now, but it was a great season. We ate them sometimes twice daily, and the grandson and his lady came over several times to eat them, dry as it's been. I don't think you can go wrong letting cucumbers climb. That's the only way I succeed with them; the bugs used to kill them before I could get more that two or three cukes. Apparently getting them off the ground keeps the bugs away.

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    4. Thanks for the tips! I shall roast some radishes and keep an eye out on hanging cukes!

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    5. I do not grow regular "radishes" anymore, but do try and grow Daikon radishes.

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    6. I would like to try growing those sometime. I've eaten plenty of them over the years and liked them.

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  2. It is sad that when there is surplus growth of farm products, they go waste.

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    1. I hope ours will not go to waste. In the past, our surpluses have been taken by others.

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  3. I can't imagine having to haul water. After months of at least one rain a week, we're now dry. So I'm watering, but not having to haul it any distance!

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    1. It isn’t the best setup for watering. I’ve often wished for a close by hydrant but the cost would never be recovered to install one.

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  4. You have so much growing! Watering is an issue, even for me when I grew tomatoes. They need so much of it when the fruit is developing. They are mostly water after all! I love radishes: I eat them plain, with dip, in potato salad, on salads, etc.

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    1. I eat them raw too though my wife doesn't like them if there is any sort of spice to them which is about most radishes. Quick pickling removes that spice so she can eat them.

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  5. Phew! That's a lot of plantings and a lot of hard work hauling water! If you see a watering truck for sale, it might be a good investment...

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    1. It is probably cheaper and easier to get enough hose to cover the distance to the hydrant!

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  6. Looks like you'll have a great crop, Ed. I remember my dad growing radishes and he said the same as you -- they were easy to grow. Pretty tasteless, in my opinion, but gives a salad a crunchy texture.

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    1. These have a bit of a kick to them when eaten raw which I like. Gives any salad a peppery hit.

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  7. In spite of your dry weather, your garden is looking really good. I think it's great someone offered you extra plants! Maybe you can do some new things with canning tomatoes this year.

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    1. I'm not sure what I can do that we use a lot of but I'll definitely take suggestions. I hope to put up a lot of spaghetti and pizza sauce which the kids went through a lot of over the last couple years. Tomato paste too.

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  8. I was going to suggest a game camera to spy on the tree. It must be a BIG bird to break branches. A turkey? LOL

    (Maybe a deer?)

    Thanks for the asparagus photo! I had no idea what they'd look like as a fully grown plant. Not really something one would ever grow as an ornamental. :)

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    1. Stay tuned. I have one more picture of them fully feathered out and at full height.

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  9. Despite the dryness, it looks like things are going well. We are having weird weather, with lots of rain (probably 4 inches over Memorial Day weekend, which was kind of a bummer) and cool weather. The lettuce is doing great!

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    1. Our lettuce crop this year was pretty slim pickings. After this post, we finally broke down and drug out a mile of garden hose and watered everything thoroughly before heavily mulching to help keep it from evaporating so fast. That should help quite a bit to perk things up.

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  10. I am always so impressed with your gardening, Ed. I'm also really envious of your crop harvesting.

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