Tag Archives: cherry tomatoes

The efficiency of a square foot garden

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This might look like a boring picture but there’s a lot too see. The pole coming out of the ground was once a  very thriving cherry tomato plant growing vertically in only 1 square. That’s it. Our evening temperatures have been mid- low 50’s and that marks a change with tomatoes. It changes the  quality of the taste and they become mushy and begin to fall off. There were still a lot of green cherry tomatoes on the plant but there’s not enough time for them to ripen. 

Looking more closely, you’ll notice 3 areas of lettuce coming up in the front of the square. I planted this a couple of weeks ago so that it will be perfectly timed to grow before the freeze hits. It’ll only be baby lettuce leaves, but these hold up much better than their more mature lettuces which turn soupy after a couple of freezes. 

I want to make sure my new lettuces get all the sun possible at this time of year. If I pulled up the entire tomato plant it would uproot the lettuces which you see growing. So, I will simply cut off the branches and the lower stem and now I have a square that will grow into winter. I’ll leave the stem in the ground until the lettuces are harvested. 

Beginning in January, this single square housed 25 carrots, 9 spinach plants, an 8′ cherry tomato plant, and now 3 heads of leaf lettuce which will remain until late December or early January. 

Not bad for one square foot. I’ve got 174 of them. 🙂

Tomato cloche

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Got a little wet and cold the past couple of days. I’ve had my early cherry tomato plants out and didn’t want to take a chance of losing them. Just an old orange juice container with the bottom cut out and placed gently over the plant has always done the trick for me. If it gets colder at night I will put the cap on but am sure to remove the cap by morning.

Gearing up for 2019

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I’m not much of a Christmas/holiday person but when these show up, I’m happy. Lots of things planned for this year including growing some selected herbs and cherry tomatoes for 2 or 3 local restaurants. I’m feeling a little bit of pressure because of it, but we’ll see how it goes. There will be a new variety of cherry tomatoes that I”ll be growing this year in addition to the famous sungold, grape, and rainbow. Cherry bomb promises to be an excellent choice for a sweet red cherry. I’ll be growing English cucumbers again, along with a new, less spicy variety of arugula. Looking forward to a brand new season.[ois skin=”1″]

How about some snow with those tomatoes?

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In our geography you often hear that it’s safe to plant summer crops after Mother’s day. It’s snowed twice this week-after the tomatoes have been planted. And unless you’ve got some kind of protection, your tomatoes are no longer among the living.

Yesterday I delivered some tomato, kale, and lettuce plants to a customer. As I looked at his raised bed, you couldn’t help but notice the dead existing tomato plants, squash, and zucchini they had planted a couple of weeks ago during one of those early and rare 80 degree spring days. If you want to do that you can, but only if you’re prepared to cover your crops in case of a weather emergency.

These tomato plants made it through just fine with the use of an inexpensive cloche. I don’t use anything fancy but you can spend a lot of money on them if you want. I think its a good idea to have several of these handy items available for this very purpose. Its a good thing to use when you’re first putting in your transplants as well. It protects not just from the colder weather, but also from wind, which is also a bad thing for plants just starting out.

The other nifty think I like about using cheap orange juice container such as this? If night time temperatures will be getting to low, you can simple put the cap on. It’s important to take them off the next day, especially if the sun will be coming out. After 7-10 days, I’ll remove the cloche as the weather should be safe from here on out [ois skin=”3″]

Harvest time

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img_0340If you’re anything like me your cherry tomatoes have been coming up very heavily right now. It’s the time of season where you really don’t do much work-mostly harvesting. The exception to that is if you’re planning to have a winter garden. I’ll be posting next week to mention what I’ve been preparing in my winter gardens. There are some unique advantages to the winter months, and there are even some advantages to living in a very cold climate vs. our friends in warmer climates. In some of these warmer climates you wont be able to grow winter annuals like us northerns. Of course, we can’t get tomatoes year round like they do.

Like previous summers, I’ve grown several different varieties of tomatoes. Three types of the regular looking varieties, a paste tomato, 4 cherry tomatoes, and a grape tomato. All taste different. All are delicious! And if I wonder out to the garden and find some on the ground, I know I’ve waited too long. It’s hard for me to keep up on pulling the ripe ones, but it’s pretty important to get that done. I’ll now begin to preserve my tomato harvest by freezing and using my dehydrator. Maybe I’ll post something about that on a later date [ois skin=”3″]