Tomato Prairie: Four-Week Check-up

Bless their little hearts. You can just barely see them in those maximum-security farm panel cages. This bed was tilled to expand it from about 16 x 20 feet to 20 x 30 to allow for at least five feet between plants. Ever since reading Steve Solomon's book Gardening When it Counts, I've moved further and further from French-style intensive gardening and raised beds, especially as global climate change now allows me to grow figs in Central Kentucky without packing and waxing them for the winter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 24, 2013: 16 tomatoes after planting in the newly expanded tomato bed in the back behind the Garden Shed Formerly Known as Chicken Coop. I had to follow up with the last two tomatoes a few days later. 

The root balls of these seedlings were soaked in a lukewarm Alaskan kelp solution (1 teaspoon kelp liquid to 1 quart tap water), and transplanted with a mix of 1 teaspoon of Epsom salts, 2 tablespoons of Espoma organic 4-3-3, and a final drench of 1 cup of kelp solution.  

Once they start to bloom they'll be side-dressed  with 3 to 4 tablespoons of a mixture of  2 parts bat guano (yes, I know, it's probably not sustainably harvested and I'll never buy it again but in the meantime I have four bags left), 2 parts bonemeal and 1 part ground kelp.

Four and a half weeks later, on June 25, 2013, at least one of the girls (Costoluto Genovese) had reached the top of her cage, Black Cherry  had outgrown the width of her cage, and many others are on their way there.

(That's not a ghost orb on the screen - it's a dewdrop. We actually have dew in the morning this year, which marks a major difference between 2012 and 2013).

Ain't they purty?