I'd like to say these heirloom tomatoes came from my own garden, but our plants are not ready for harvest, and I have no qualms about buying these golden orange beauties. Lightly dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper... (sigh). So good.
We got a late start on the garden this year, and Nature is a cruel Mistress; there are no hall passes or tardy slips that will give me back those early summer weeks when I should have been out there in the yard planting seeds or setting out young plants. In fact I have a confession: the cherry tomatoes that are growing now are volunteers from last year! Several little tomato seeds got it in their little round heads to sow themselves. And despite my "square foot gardening" plan, all neatly drawn out in grids on my paper, we could not bear to pull out these upstarts. So while the Plan is not completely shot to hell, it is... well let's just say it's more of a "wavy foot garden", not quite as geometric as I had planned.
But that's OK. I did pull out ("thinning" after the fact) the plants that were too close together, and then I cut off the excess limbs so as to strengthen and train the best vine of the plant onto a rudimentary structure. The idea is to grow the vines vertically in order to increase yield, and conserve water and space and work.
In the next few days (after the New Moon) I'll be planting the other veggies and herbs, trying to fit them around the tomatoes and in some kind of relaxed grid. I'll explain these grids later for those of you new to the idea of "square foot gardening".
For now I am just glad to get to the garden and eat a few heirloom tomatoes from the market to keep me inspired.
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