Final Harvest

Today’s harvest will probably be the last until we get early summer tomatoes ( if any). It was probably the best year yet. I wish I know what I did different this year; but I don’t. The great weather and mild winter probably had something to do with it.

Spring is also bringing us herb blooms.

I am also liking how healthy this lime bush looks. Perhaps I won’t kill all the citrus?

Next up is to see if the blueberry bushes will bring us anything this year. We will see.
For now here is a cat picture….

Tomato Bounty

They did it. The tomatoes survived. They survived some freezes and the survived neglect while we were in India.
We came home from a vacation to this bounty. So far we have used them for salads, lentils, and spaghetti sauce.
The biggest problem is that we cannot eat them fast enough!!!

Some fresh herbs as well.

Preparing for the freeze

My plan to use the EZ-UP to make a tomato tent was a failure (see the closed tent to the right). I rushed home from work to put the tomato house together but I could not put the tent up on my own. After trying for about 30 minutes I gave up on that plan and went back to what I know – sheets. I had a couple of coverups that were given to me as a gift last year. Two of them were used but the third completely fell apart (see photo below). What the &*&(*&???

I tried really hard to secure both of my square foot gardens with what sheets I had. I think I did an ok job but there might be a little hole or two. We will find out after tomorrow’s freeze.

Possible hole….

Finally some tomatoes are ripe. I took this opportunity to do a quick check and harvest ones close to ripen.

I ran out of sheets ~~was too lazy~~ to cover the citrus so I decided to pick the good key limes to prevent them from getting damaged in the freeze. Looks like some cocktails are happening in the future.

Trouble in Tomato Land

It almost feels like deja vu again. A couple years ago I had a bumper croup of tomatoes in the winter that experienced a freeze before they started to ripen. Soon after the freeze some tomatoes did finally ripen but most were too destroyed to enjoy.
Today I have about 6 very large tomato plants with many tomatoes just waiting to ripen. I have finally realized what the problem is. I have been monitoring the sun exposure for the two gardens for the past couple of months and have found that they are simply not getting enough sun exposure to ripen the tomatoes this time of year. The gardens are perfectly placed for spring, summer, and fall crops but not for winter; which is our prime tomato season. The only thing I can hope for at this point is that the plants hang in there and we avoid a deep freeze this season (highly unlikely). The sun patterns will change and they will get light again. I have some choices to make about next year’s crops. Summer is brutal so I really should be set up for optimal fall, winter and spring gardening. For now we wait.

Not sure if you can tell but I used vines from the now dormant muscadine grape to contain the tomatoes while I was running low on string. Pretty good re-use of the garden if I do say so myself.