A Year in My Garden - Tomatoes ala SFG

One of the important things with the Square Foot Gardening technique is the spacings of plants ... These are a lot closer than you would normally do in the traditional line by line garden... So for example you can grow 16 radishes in one square foot or 16 onions or 4 broad beans etc .... Tomatoes, it is listed as 1 per square foot ... Well thats what I thought it said ... It's actually 1 per square foot in a line of 4 ...Then you can grow the up a trellis and they have plenty of space front and back .. just not so good a spacing side to side ..... 

 

But I read 1 per square foot. And I planted a raised bed with 25 tomato plants .... It wasn't long before I realised this wan't such a good idea..Crowding of the leaves soon happened along with leaves yellowing badly from fungal growth ( i think) being wet and humid here in summer .... 

I also then went on to create two other raised beds on the front yard to grow even more plants ...I'm trialing a number of heirloom plants ..... And of course ther were all planted at 1 plant per square foot .....

 

They had to be staked as well of course and a cane stuck into a little over 6 inches of friable soil over tarmac was not going to hold a 6 foot plus plant and 6 or so trusses of fruit ..... 

 

There are cages you can buy for tomato plants and that was an option ...but for 50 something plants !!... 

 

And so this is what I've come up with ... A cage covering the whole tomato plant area... The canes are pushed in at an angle both ways so that as the plants grow up them they grow further and further apart from each other .....

 

Not a pretty look ...But it does seem to be doing the trick. It's allowing more space and its staying upright in the quite heavy wind we've had the past few days ... 

 

I had to do something with the base of the plants and the leaf die off. I needed to get an air flow through them (being windy wellington and on the side of a hill should be too hard a task) and so simply pruned the leaves away for about the first foot of the plants... I've seen commercial growers go further and take almost all the leaves off of tomato plants as it encourages more flowering ... But leaves produce sugars from the sun and photosynthesis and thats what I want in my tomato fruit...the taste of the sun.. ....Anyway they don't seem to be shy in flowering at the moment so higher leaves stayed on... 

 

I should also have cut the flowers from the lowest part of the stems to stop the fruit forming and lying on the soil ...But I didn't ...And now the fruit is starting to ripen I've had to prop them up off the ground ..not hard to do ..just time consuming and a pain in the butt...

 

This is one of two raised borders directly onto tarmac in the front yard ..... (The neighbours must thing we are pretty odd people ....)  8 inch wide planks of macrocarpa ....2 inches of straw on the bottom to retain moisture ...6 inches of compost soil ...The tomatoes are growing well and fruit set is growing well too... but the heat is a drawback and does suck the moisture right out of the soil .... Oh and I've two egg plants in the corners loving the heat .....

Oh and the other thing I did back in november was to buy a dozen plants from a church fundraiser (money maker and russian red).. Which is fine except that the 6 russian red are bush tomatoes not vine.. And not knowing I cut off all the lateral shoots (I thought there was a lot) ...Not so good a practice for bush Toms (but they would have rotted in the crowded bed anyways if I hadn't) ...so I will get a reduced harvest from them this time (not that we'll notice if all the others set fruit) ... I've let some of the side shoot grow higher up though where they have more space anyway albeit a top heavy plant they will be .... 

 

Meanwhile the heirloom plants don't seem to set the fruit too well compared to the others ...they are also more likely to have fused flowers (which is where the giant tomatoes in competitions come from) .. We also have some leaf curl in those plants .. .doesn't seem to bad and maybe more climatic or envirmental rather than virus/bacterial .. but I will research that tomorrow and see if anything can be done .....

Open to suggestions of course from those knowledgeable ones :O) The plants are watered daily ...

 

  Top tomato skin is shiny and smooth ... Bottom variety are almost hairy and dulled by the fuzz on them ....

And then there is the monarch catapillar .... We especially bought a defoliated swan plant just for getting a catapillar for the garden ... works out about $4NZ a catapillar !! :O) Since then we have two very happy monarch butterflies continously flying around the flower beds ...They love the dahlias etc ... more food than they could have ever wished for and a small forest of swan plants for their own catapillars ....

 

 Err - the left side is the head side ... You don't want to know what I saw coming out of the right side ......:O) But that must have been a lotta swan plant leaves eaten !! :O)    

A year in My garden #11

Well finally we have Spring !!!! This weekend we had temperatures hitting 24C in my garden. Just confirmed this (new thermometer just bought) at our local Stokes valley weather station who has the detail on the web.. The chap who does it is just a little way up the road from us so pretty close for weather guaging :O)

We sat out on the house desk for the first time ..>So nice ..>So relaxing.....

Cola

I won't go into detail here as McD has written a nice little entry on her with some lovely pictures etc ... The Bottom line is though that she was back into the vets last week for a few days but there is nothing more they can do for her .. .She is now at home enjoying the warm weather and McDs love care and attention ... One day at a time we wait for the inevitable ...Bu t at the moment she is happy enough..

If you have time - visit McDinzies Blog on Cola

I've had a birthday !!! :o\ 49 now !! :o\ ..I've warned McD that this will be a difficult year for her and me... I've started to create a bucket List for the last year of my 40s ... just to try and make it a little different to the rest of the decade .....Of course it all starts next saturday when someone (Ahem - Me!!!!) has to win the $30m lottery The highest it can get to in NZ....

Meanwhile We actually got stuck into the gardening and building more raised borders on Saturday...Then went out for a meal at a malasian restaurant called Monsoon Poon with B my son. Unfortunately B had just that morning been dumped by his girlfriend of some time ...All went well but I get very upset and angry as B won't get himself sorted in life... He will be 29 soon but still looks and acts like a uni student.....

Oh well ...He's probably happier than I was having worked for 11years or more by that age ....

Today we were back into the gardening again ... But our bodies are showing signs of too long a period of inactivity and are tired and achy especially now .....

McD bought me a little plastic green house for my birthday !! I now can house my seeds and seedlings properly instead of on top of the dining table covered in plastic ...

All the plants seem to be growing well at the veggie plot. Garlic looking more and more tempting to have young wrapped within a nice butterflied leg of lamb ... McDs Mum will most probably visit in a couple of weeks as we have labour day public holiday .... You can guess the rest :O)

The Pole beans I planted outside came up but are not looking too healthy in one of the beds ...Suspect the extended cold weather did them no good ... If they don't look too good in a week or so I will replant them as I have time on my side still ...

Meanwhile we are trying to complete another 4-5 raised beds of varying sizes ASAP.. The plot of land we are using is causing problem after problem and it was already terraced (badly) .. so the latter few beds may not be as big as I had hoped .... But at the end of the day we will have enough to keep us fed hopefully in fresh vegetables just about all year ... Just wish it would hurry up :O)

There is also so much else to do - tidy up the veggie patch. Dig out the dreaded gorse root before it grows again. Laydown weed mat and bark around the beds, sort out the pathway proerly up to the vegie patch before one of us kills ourselves (it's muddy and steep and needs a couple of extra steps putting in) ..

This is McD's seeting arrangement util we can get a proer piece of decking put in .... Works a treat Though a little snug with the two of us .... great spot to look out at over the valley though and down the other valley to wellington and it's harbour..

And then there;s the rest of the garden .......

This was the pot sposed to me M-in-Ls prezzie ... now waiting to be taken onto the decking of the house

Potatoes in Dustbins and buckets :O)

The purple Moari potatoes coming up nicely ...Though doubt they will be ready by Xmas.

Waiting for the dahlias to grow...

Azalias weeds and all

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A Year In My garden # 9

My Whole garden is a construction site !!!!!!

The good thing is that daylight savings kicks in next weekend and then it will be light to around 7pm - a little more if the twilight counts ...... So the work can now kick up a pace and things can get done ....

This weekend, well this Saturday, was the Mum-in-Law birthday..So we decided to take the day off, pack our cameras and make the two hour drive to Palmerston North .... As usual of course we are in bleary eyed disarray. Dogs, clothes, cameras, keys, petrol, you name it, we went through it ..where's this, are you taking that ... No Petrol !! ....ugghg

McD's Daughter S is also in Palmerston North. At the university there..So we picked her up first ....

Of course there had to be The One Thing we were sposed to remember on such a day ...yep the birthday present .... This year McD had chosen a terracotta strawberry planter all planted with about 8 or so healthy strawberry plants that had stood in the sun for a couple of weeks in the yard, the strawberry plants loving it ....

But McD forgot it !!

"So give her an IOU" I helpfully suggest ....

"I do have a picture of it if that helps" I offered ....

So there we were hunting down garden centres in Palmerston North and then finding a terracotta strawberry planter that was empty, we then bought strawberry plants and potting soil and off to M-in-L's house S in the back seat ...

So there we were just around the corner from M-in-Ls house and I've parked and S is sent off to steal stones from the imaculately presented houses around us ...And I'm filling the pot up with soil, stones in place around the hole at the bottom to prevent clogging and the whole thing is planted in a few minutes and then S holds the pot as we make our way the 100 metres to the house ...

She liked it ....S gave her the pot and it was formally positioned in the sun in the front beside the door...

"You may want to water it" I say helpfully but totall ignored ..

Of course

And so the day went on ... the 3 generations of one family women rabbiting on over lunch at a restaurant... Me not really listening (too much baby and cousins I've never met and probably not heard of before type talk )...

And then a slow drive through the park there to see the Cherry Blossom trees in full bloom along the driveway ... An awesome sight for sure ...I'll leave those photos for McD to show ....

But to day I've had a bad back. I'm sore and my body is tired ...But up we get and do 3 or 4 hours work this morning and then in for a salmon omlette for lunch that McD made, 1/2 hours sleep and back out we go planting Dahlia tubers ...Which were the ones we had the good sense to dig out and not rely on jim the gardener to do ...

Despite our request jim the gardener decided not to dig all the tubers up ...in fact none of the tubers in the main round borded we have in the front of the house .... 167% more rain this winter than the average and hundreds of dollars of dahlia tubers had rotted ......

So we've divided the tubers we have and we have too many really ..but so many old friends in flower size shape and colours are gone and we won't see them this year ...and as I suspect a lot were self sown crossbreds we may never see them again ....

Back breaking work ...I've been in pain all day from my back and will struggle to sleep from it tonight ...

I know - Wingeing Pom :O)

The vegetable garden has been a bit of a mess as we've left things lying around , newspapers soggy from rain, plastic planters from the strawberries we've put in the beds ..Builders plastic , tools, compost and lots of mud ....... McD did a tidy up this morning but after I'd taken these shots ....

The construction site - It can only get better

The front yard is a mess too ... Fence that I've only painted half of needs completing ..We've had soil and pebble mounds on the tarmac for the past 4 or 5 months ... The aim now is to clear that and get a skip in and empty the garage and the rubbish about the property (like rusted BBQs) and get the place looking OK again ....

The construction site - Mud everywhere from the rain..grass and weeds taking hold again.

Then there's the house to decorate ......

It never ends eh......

So after all that work McD and I start seed planting ... McD documenting everything we've planted cause she knows i'm not good at that ...

Peas to the left, Radish, carrots and pak choi cabbage to the right .

So Pumkin, Eggplant, Cucumber, winter melon, are all planted in bio-degradeable coffee cups. then a large selection of Chili pepers and bell peppers have been planted into a seed tray row by row ..all documened from cayenne peppers to habeneros and bulgarian carrot chillis ....

Mostly cabbages but at the back celery, silverbeet, leeks, spinach .

Strawberry plants looking good.

Broad beans to the left, "mini-cabbages" in the middle, then egyption onion, garlic and strawberries to the right ...

A square foot garden in the making

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We now pick up discarded tyres from the road side and grow rhubarb in them.. Well one of them anyway

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This was the original vegetable plot.. We did rescue some mint plants and lemon balm plants from here ...Now it has a dozen Jersey Benne potatoes planted in it .

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The view from my seat at the top of the plot ...

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A year in My Garden - #8

Old wisdom:

Flowers are said to be a good indicator of how the season is progressing and when it is safe to sow and plant.



"When the crocuses bloom, sow peppers and eggplant indoors.

When daffodils bloom, sow tomatoes, cabbage, and lettuce indoors.

When Lilies of the Valley bloom, plant tomatoes outside.

When Irises bloom, put peppers, cucumbers, and eggplant outdoors.

When peonies bloom, plant melons"



I wonder if there is more to that poem??



I'm sat at my computer in my room freezing my bits off..... We forgot to order the refills for the gas bottles we have at the house that runs the fire in the house ... That fire heats the whole house ..Though we do have an electric radiator at the opposite end of the house to keep the chill off the bedrooms and hall way at night..That radiator is now in the living room beside McDs chair ......



So here I am without heat but with a yellow "Winny the Poo" Blanket draped over my shoulders ...I did used to have a manly mexican blanket ..But thats now relegated to the seat cover of my chair ... I used to have a BigDogs Blanket...But McDs Daughter S took a shine to that ...Poor cold destitute flatting student that she is .... So I 'm here with my yellow "Poo" blanket a prezzy from McD whose humour knows no bounds ......



We are sposed to be in spring here ... It was announced September 1st was spring start !! But not tonight ... Actually not yesterday or the day before either ....We've had a freezing cold southerly hit us ..>Straight off the Antartic ...Cold Cold Cold... Then it all cleared late saturday afternoon Right after I had prepared the earth for raised vegetable bed number 4 ....





And then at the end of the 6 o'clock news - so 7pm really they announce there would be a frost over most of the country !!!



A FROST !!!



So there we are tucking the seedling in with old newspapers ..Guided by the light of a feeble tourch as we make our way up the slippery garden path through the trees to the top level of the garden ..>Covering new seedlings of carrot radish and pakchoi ....Covering the potatoes in their bucket/dustbin containers down in the yard .... and then hoping all will be well for our vegie babies....



The local weather station, just up the road from where we live says it's 8C at 11:30pm... I'll be surprised if it gets to freezing point now ..Plus being on the side of a hill there tends to be a reasonable air flow over the garden ..... .I hope so .... It will be a shame to see the potato leaves just opened, turn black ...





Border 1 has now recovered from the unbelieveably wet winter ... Some casualties, with some of the cabbages rotting at the stem.... But not that many ... so with a good number of plants at different stages of growth we are still looking forward to that first harvest ..... The leeks are still pencil thin but looking healthy enough . One plant lost. the rest, spinache, celery, silverbeet, all looking pretty good....





It certainly has been a wet winter. The wettest on record for wellington and many other sites around the country.... 167% more rain through the winter and 8 weekends in a row where it poured down....





So out of the 10/11 raised borders plus the fruit plants we wanted to plant out ..We've managed 4...Or will have by the end of the weekend .....



















But We have broadbeans growing nice and green, Garlic reaching for the sky along with Egyptian onions ...And Strawberries just coming into bud ...Though the plants are small still ....















So we have the start of a vegetable garden... I'll start sowing the tomatoes, curbits and capsicums etc in doors or under cover in readiness for a warmer soil in a few weeks .... It will happen ...just not tonight .....

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