My apologies to Maya Angelou for that one. Hopefully she would find humor in my predicament.In the five years we have lived in our house, I have tried to grow tomatoes for four years. The only year I didn't, we had just moved in and it was too late to plant.
I tried growing them under the maple tree, in pots and where the basswood tree had been in the back yard. All were miserable failures. We got, at best, a couple tomatoes. The plants were wimpy, and thank god for the farmer's market.
This year has been the exact opposite. However, I have failed to remember that healthy tomatoes need to be caged, and staked. I was marveling so much in their large bushy appearance that I quite failed to notice that they were falling over and could no longer support themselves. I staked a little, but it was a halfhearted effort. What I really needed to do was cage them. Oh sure, I had caged the ones we planted later, but it was mostly to get the cages from last year out of my way.
According to the lovely women of the Green Girls Blog, there is hope for me. I only need cage and prune. I'm not sure if I shouldn't have provided pictures so they knew the extent of my tardiness, but I went ahead with it. The poor dears. I have lost some major branches (I have more to spare), lots of foliage, but not a single baby tomato. That's right, hiding under all of that mass were some baby tomatoes on my Early Girls.
Ladies and Gentleman, we have tomatoes! Now where did those ninety degree temps go, I'm getting hungry.
Posts
1 comment:
Cages are important with tomatos. We also found that by cutting the bottom branches, about 4 inchs and below, the top gets much more full and healthy. I go out every other day and trim a bit.
We had one plant that would NOT blossom, no flowers or tomatos. Two days after I trimmed, flowers EVERYWHERE. My Mom was smart!.
Do you can your tomatos, or are you able to eat them all? We can ours, for chilli and pasta.
Post a Comment